MacGruber has all of the faults you'd expect from a film based on a Saturday Night Live sketch:
1) Squandered talent and wasted comedic opportunities. Kristen Wiig plays a very understated role in this movie. Her character doesn't have any of the rapid-fire or goofy speech patterns she's known for on SNL, or anything very funny to say for that matter.
Also, an important plot point about MacGruber's hand-picked team is drawn out way too long in a scene that was totally spoiled by the trailers anyway.
There aren't really any cameos or supporting roles by anyone else with comedic talent either.
2) Sloppy, lazy writing with an underdeveloped plot. Not much happens in this movie. There are no really big action/chase scenes, just some stock warehouse/factory shootouts. All of the special effects budget seems to have been spent on throat-ripping and bullet-wound effects.
There are also a bunch of jokes about how MacGruber only uses household items, not guns, but since he doesn't really use the gadgets to get out of sticky situations - except a celery stalk and a mop - these jokes fall mostly flat.
So, it's definitely not Beverly Hills Cop - it's barely even Beverly Hills Ninja.
3) Lowbrow humor. There are way too many repetitive, juvenile scatological gags in this movie, such as MacGruber's fixation with promising to give or receive sexual favors in order to keep his mission going or his threatened mode of revenge against the villain.
Even the villain's name is used ad nauseum throughout the whole movie in order to justify exactly one funny double entendre that occurs in the first few minutes (think Alec Baldwin's "Pete Schwedde" character on SNL - this movie probably had the same writer).
Despite all this, I was laughing pretty hard throughout most of the movie, because the MacGruber character is just so stupid and over the top. Kind of like Ace Ventura meets Dumb and Dumber without the limits of a PG-13 rating.
Also, Ryan Phillippe did a good job as the straight man.
The TV ads are saying this is the funniest SNL movie since Wayne's World. That's a pretty apt description even though it doesn't mean much, since Wayne's World was also disappointing.
Anybody who watches SNL (or used to) knows what to expect. You sit (or fast forward) through 90 minutes of mostly crap hoping for a few good laughs. When MacGruber is over, you realize that this movie is also mostly crap, but since it provides more than a few good laughs I guess that makes it a qualified success.
1) Squandered talent and wasted comedic opportunities. Kristen Wiig plays a very understated role in this movie. Her character doesn't have any of the rapid-fire or goofy speech patterns she's known for on SNL, or anything very funny to say for that matter.
Also, an important plot point about MacGruber's hand-picked team is drawn out way too long in a scene that was totally spoiled by the trailers anyway.
There aren't really any cameos or supporting roles by anyone else with comedic talent either.
2) Sloppy, lazy writing with an underdeveloped plot. Not much happens in this movie. There are no really big action/chase scenes, just some stock warehouse/factory shootouts. All of the special effects budget seems to have been spent on throat-ripping and bullet-wound effects.
There are also a bunch of jokes about how MacGruber only uses household items, not guns, but since he doesn't really use the gadgets to get out of sticky situations - except a celery stalk and a mop - these jokes fall mostly flat.
So, it's definitely not Beverly Hills Cop - it's barely even Beverly Hills Ninja.
3) Lowbrow humor. There are way too many repetitive, juvenile scatological gags in this movie, such as MacGruber's fixation with promising to give or receive sexual favors in order to keep his mission going or his threatened mode of revenge against the villain.
Even the villain's name is used ad nauseum throughout the whole movie in order to justify exactly one funny double entendre that occurs in the first few minutes (think Alec Baldwin's "Pete Schwedde" character on SNL - this movie probably had the same writer).
Despite all this, I was laughing pretty hard throughout most of the movie, because the MacGruber character is just so stupid and over the top. Kind of like Ace Ventura meets Dumb and Dumber without the limits of a PG-13 rating.
Also, Ryan Phillippe did a good job as the straight man.
The TV ads are saying this is the funniest SNL movie since Wayne's World. That's a pretty apt description even though it doesn't mean much, since Wayne's World was also disappointing.
Anybody who watches SNL (or used to) knows what to expect. You sit (or fast forward) through 90 minutes of mostly crap hoping for a few good laughs. When MacGruber is over, you realize that this movie is also mostly crap, but since it provides more than a few good laughs I guess that makes it a qualified success.