8/10
I Don't Know What the Hell This Is, But I Like It
4 December 2015
This is one of the strangest films I have ever seen, mainly due to how much it leaves you near constantly questioning what is going on. Not so much from a narrative standpoint, but in the absolute weirdness of the humor, which, having been taken out of Tim and Eric's usual 45 second sketch format and placed in a feature length film, seems even more jarring than usual. This is not a bad thing, however; I do love me some Tim and Eric weirdness. That's the main point of this film: you HAVE to already be familiar with this style of humor, or you will HATE it, trust me. Within the first 10 seconds of the film, the uninitiated will ask the following questions: Why is Jeff Goldblum saying that his name is Chef Goldblum? Am I watching a commercial before the movie? Why did he say hi three times? Am I going to hate this movie? If you had to ask all of these questions, then the answer to the last one is most certainly yes. The crux to Tim and Eric's anarchical humor is acceptance of everything; in order to enjoy any of their material, one must essentially accept that almost everything is clichéd and trite, and here is a nihilistic parody of that as well as the entire world. This is not to say that you can't criticize this film; I doubt that even the most fervent of Tim and Eric supporters laugh at all of their jokes. For me, those that fall the most flat are the gross out gags; the ones involving diarrhea, semen, urine, etc. (if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about) Even so, I'm sure that Tim and Eric understood this, that many would dislike some of these gags, but simply didn't care. Even more, I think that this movie strangely enough wouldn't work without them. The spirit of all of this duo's products is a fierce sense of experimentation; were it that every joke felt the same, or even that there were coherent running gags, that experimentation would be lost. This is a movie for a distinct group of people who want to see complete insanity unfold before them, without a hint of normality throughout the entire thing. If you want to try out something like this, I suggest going to the television series first, as it is shorter and far easier to digest. If you are already a fan of the show, however, you will love this thing, as I did. It's demented weirdness at its finest.
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