Harold Ramis returns to the big screen with this juvenile comedy which relies on an extremely distorted chronology to keep the gag rate up.
Jack Black and Michael Cera are employed as big comedy names to keep the ship afloat despite the obviously leaky premise; a travel through biblical Israel. The Bible and comedy enjoy a distinct love/hate relationship (Life of Brian/Evan Almighty) and here ‘Year One’ slips towards the latter.
Even the charm of seeing Michael Cera and David Cross (Cain) on screen again together after the regrettable cancelling of Arrested Development can’t save a film which relies so heavily on toilet humour and physical comedy. There are almost no memorable lines, most of the images that stay with you are of Jack Black sauntering around topless or Michael Cera being crushed by an albino Boa Constrictor.
Cera does his best to dither and dally, a practice he has made his own and become the universal advocate of, but even his best attempts can’t save a film that on paper has a demon comedy line up (Cera, Black, Cross, Mintz-Plasse, Azaria, Wilde, Rudd…etc.), and when you seen him imprisoned upside down peeing into his nostrils, well, it might be funny, but this is about as low humour as should be allowed in British cinemas.
A bit of a misstep, but then most films with Jack Black since School of Rock have been missteps. To call it an error of Biblical proportions would be unfair, but there are plenty more entertaining moments in the Bible.
The Clapper Bored 