Muffin is pretty much the biggest Family Guy fan in the world and so we have pretty much been planning to go see it since the day we discovered it was being made. I personally also do love the whole Seth MacFarlane conglomerate, but abhor constant poop, penis, and vomit jokes. I can handle a few here and there, but I have to say that there are only so many ways I can hear someone innuendo sex before I throw my hands in the air and lose interest.
Take Ted, for instance. Again, Muffin was DYING to see it from the moment word was out about it being made. It was all I heard about for MONTHS. So when it finally came out, we immediately went to see it and I wasn't miserable with it. I got tired of the toilet humour, but I could hang. We now have to pull it off of our shelf ever few months to watch it again (ie. the morning before we went and saw A Million Ways) just to get our fill of the hilarity that ensues. I put on my blinders on during the parts that I know make me want to kill myself and laugh heartily at the parts I know slay me.
Anyways. Back to the film. I trudged into the cinema with my hubby, BFF, and her husband, dreading how much this could make or break my appreciation of Mr. MacFarlane. I knew from day one that this film was either going to make my sides split for one hundred and sixteen minutes or make me want to die. He was either going to hit a home run or be kicked off the team. And I've got to admit, my confidence was not high for the former. I was almost completely certain that this was going to be the last bucket of overly-buttered popcorn that I would be consuming at a MacFarlane film. I had the nails in my hand, set to hammer into his coffin and put my adoration for his smart, snappy sense of humour (despite all poop and penises) to bed once and for all.
And boy was I wrong.
I won't lie, it's pretty heavy on the toilet-humour, but it is VERY sparse in comparison to the surprisingly witty period humour. There were countless plays-on-words and innuendos that were innocent enough to stand on their own as plain old smart jokes. I was in love with all the hilarious cap-nods to the wagon-and-horses days that not many (or any) of us know anything about.
It DID seem that Seth took it upon himself to steal every single joke or one-liner in the film for himself. Despite his HUGE array of big stars (Giovanni Ribisi, Neil Patrick Harris, Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, and Sarah Silverman), he snagged all the hilarity for almost entirely for his character, leaving the other characters not entirely in the dark, but not quite maximized to their full potential.
What he DID do was let those characters give their nods to previous characters or roles, which delighted me to no end. Seeing Giovanni Ribisi dancing his seductive little booty off again a'la Ted was worth all the stress of what the film would have to store. And OH there were tons of nods to Ted, which I didn't have a problem with. It was fun and made the nerds who are huge devotees to MacFarlane's other projects feel like they had a little insider knowledge.
What this film DID do was make me hate Sarah Silverman less, but only marginally. I just hate her so much and almost immediately lose interest in anything that she is involved in once I find out. OH! And there's a HEAP of cameos! So the film isn't all about just the named stars, the cameos make it GREAT!
What I noticed this film ALSO did was spend probably more money than they needed to on CG animation. I'm just going to say that if you have a few extra bucks in your coffer, don't spend it on animated sheep penises. Nobody ever needs to see animated sheep penises in their film, no matter what they are watching. Yes, the song was funny, but it wasn't heightened by the penises, it just made me lose interest for about five minutes.
Overall, it was really clever, funny, and enjoyable. I wouldn't, in a million years, suggest this film to everyone. Like, I told my sister flat out to not bother going to see it. It's unmistakeably from the creator of Family Guy and worth a watch if you're a fan of it or if you like period humour and don't mind a bit of PERIOD humour (do you see what I did there?)
I'd give it a 4 out of 5. If someone gave me some free tickets to go see it right now, I'd be right there, but I'd not break my bank to see it before DVD release.
