MacGruber is a movie adaptation of the short comedy sketches that featured on Saturday Night Live that was itself a parody of the awesome MacGyver TV series (Now getting its own movie) but with MacGruber being completely inept at what he does. The feature length film builds on the SNL sketches successfully and creates one of the most entertaining comedy characters I have seen in a long while.
Will Forte stars as MacGruber, a well decorated solider with 16 purple hearts to his name and the only American to be a member of the Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Army Rangers. MacGruber, who’s presumed dead, gets called out of his self-imposed exile in South America to hunt his nemesis Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer), who killed his bride on their wedding day, and has stolen a nuclear missile which he has pointed at Washington DC. But after assembling his crack squad of elite soldiers (made up of huge WWE stars) a hilarious unforeseen circumstance means he is unable to go into the mission with them, so MacGruber has to rely on former partner Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) and assigned soldier Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe) to bring down Dieter Von Cunth.
MacGruber’s specialty is using everyday objects to concoct weapons, tools and distractions which are pretty funny and useless and he also refuses to use guns so he claims to use throat rips as his weapon of choice which is brilliantly proved in the climatic scenes. Those fans of the SNL sketches will get a nice nod to them as MacGruber has to disarm the Nuke in 30 seconds which was a nice touch and although the ending was a bit too stupid for my liking overall I laughed enough to make it the funniest film I’ve seen this year.
Written by SNL vets Will Forte, Jorma Taccone and John Solomon, they have taken a funny concept and expanded it perfectly so not to dwell the idea of the show and focus more on the character of MacGruber giving him freedom to blossom into a brilliant, entertaining and very likable comedy character. Throw in some wonderfully amusing pieces of ’80s nostalgia like MacGruber’s mullet, his obsession to his removable car stereo in his car, the awesome 80’s tunes like Broken Wings by Mr.Mister and Toto’s Rosanna that he plays whilst driving, which always raised a smile, the nods to 80’s action movies like were marvelous which further added more hilarity to an increasingly likable film.
Kristen Wiig puts in another witty performance and is the perfect accomplice to the dimwitted MacGruber having some great opportunities to get some big laughs and Ryan Phillippe plays it pretty straight which gives MacGruber tons of chances to attack in every way possible. Kilmer is having loads of fun as the villain hamming it up where possible and his rivalry with MacGruber is so funny especially the explanation of how their friendship was broken which is priceles but it’s Will Forte that is the most fun to watch, MacGruber is his character and whatever comes out of his mouth whether funny or not he’s wonderful to watch.
MacGruber is funny, at times eye wateringly funny but it is by no means an inspired comedy or one that will appeal to everyone as it’s rude, crude and at times plain stupid but it’s definitely funny. There is an overuse of jokes, especially in Cunth’s name that I’m sure was used at least 15 times to get a laugh which wore thin but MacGruber is a prime pick up and have a laugh comedy that thoroughly entertains and even though it has a pretty high hit and miss joke rate it has more than enough on offer to raise a good amount of genuine belly laughs and that can’t be bad.
MacGruber is out on the 18th June.
Trailer found here.
