MacGruber

One of my favorite forms of comedy is out-of-place vulgarity or obscenity.  I don’t know why, but the unexpected intrusion of the gutter into the world of propriety gets me every time.  MACGRUBER loves vulgarity and obscenity, but it spends so much time with them that it never creates a proper world for them to upset.  MACGRUBER only offers vulgarity and obscenity.  It wears us down and wears us out, and it does so early in the film.  Since it has little else to offer, it becomes a slog to the credits, punctuated by the occasional chuckler but not much else.

The film, a feature – length version of a recurring “Saturday Night Live” sketch mocking “MacGuyver,” brings MacGruber out of retirement to foil Val Kilmer’s evil plan to blow up Washington, D.C. (which, since I live in the DC metropolitan area, I don’t find particularly amusing).  It’s a serviceable framework on which to hang an hour and a half’s worth of jokes, when the jokes are good (Note: one joke does stand out, a REAL GENIUS sight gag that made me chuckle.  But that’s about it.).  When the jokes are bad, it’s a groan-inducing, tiresomely hackneyed plot whose only twist is its lack of a twist.  Ouch.

MACGRUBER is one of the worst films I’ve seen this year.  Save your money.