Mostly a mish-mash of questionably clever vignettes, The Onion Movie attempts to bring its usual brand of editorial humor across to the small screen, with very mixed results.
The project itself is a result of much debate between The Onion organization itself, and the studio heads who repeatedly butted heads as to how to market the product, and how to draw a full length feature out of so little material.
What comes of it is a hastily pasted together montage of passable bits, some ingeniously clever, some downright horrible.
The Onion's Cast of Characters
Though one shouldn't necessarily knock down a film by commenting on its near-complete lack of star power, The Onion Movie relied on mostly unknown actors. A possible exception to this is the surprising tongue-in-cheek appearance of Steven Seagal, who volunteered to spoof the summer blockbuster action film genre. As a recurring plot reference tying into the overall storyline, his faux-upcoming feature (which cannot be named here due to its vulgar nature, and also to prevent a funny spoiler) is cross-referenced through at least half a dozen skits and fake commercials throughout the movie.
The only notable name in the movie, is Broadway and TV veteran Len Cariou (Murder, She Wrote), as Onion News fake news anchorman Norm Archer. His increasing displeasure at the intrusion of corporate sponsor plugs inserted into the newscast, gives way to a moment somewhat remindful of Peter Finch's Howard Beale nervous breakdown scene in Network.
The Onion Movie Highlights
Here are some of the very few memorable skits found within The Onion Movie:
- A masked gunman walks into a bank, asking for a full-time job with benefits;
- A middle-aged mild mannered man can't keep up with all of the new computer upgrades, which occur on his drive home from the computer store
- An overzealous role-playing gamer treats each campaign like the real thing, and intimidates his fellow players
- An oblivious young pop starlet whose songs' content are nothing more than a series of double entendres. The comparison to a certain current troubled Lousiana-born singer is unmistakeable.
The Onion Movie DVD ExtrasThere is little to say about the extras on this disk. Only a handful of justifiably deleted scenes and outtakes are provided. Given the treatment the project has received during its long journey to DVD, It's a shame to think that the outtakes are funnier than the skits themselves. After having viewed this film, it gets easier to ignore the full-length feature itself, and concentrate on the actors fail take after take of the simplest lines.
4 out of 10
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