Review of Weird the Al Yankovic Story
Weird Al is an icon of the music industry. He might not necessarily be the best but certainly the most famous of a very niche genre, the musical parody. Weird Al has spent decades bringing humor to his audience with his trusty accordion and his knack for making up new words to songs that already exist. His most famous songs include Amish Paradise, Eat It, Like a Surgeon, and White and Nerdy, just to name a few.
With such a strong focus of making Biographical movies in Hollywood these days, it’s not much of a suprise that Weird Al would get his story projected on the silver screen. However, if you were looking for a serious and informative movie on the life and times of everyone’s favorite accordion player, you are not in the right place. But if what you are looking for is a hilarious parody of the movie genre known as the BioPic, you are exactly where you need to be.
It only makes sense that this is a parody, after all Weird Al made his name off of parodies. If this movie was in any way serious, it wouldn’t have been 1/32 as good as it was. Helmed by first time feature length director Eric Appel, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story started off as a sketch on the website Funny or Die directed and written by Appel himself. Over the next decade, there would be discussions on making the Sketch into a full blown movie. During this time, Appel built up a reputation by directing episodes for hit sitcoms like The Office, New Girl, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Finally the project came to fruition with some serious talent attached.
Not only does this movie star Hollywood heavyweight Daniel Radcliffe in the title role, it also stars Rachel Evan Wood as Madonna and Rainn Wilson as Dr. DeMento. It also features big name comedians Jack Black, Conan O’Brien, Will Forte, Quinta Brunson, Patton Oswalt, and Weird Al himself in cameo roles. The performances is this movie are spectacular, especially Radcliffe who is able to simultaneously capture the energy of Weird Al and the absurdity of Music BioPics. One minute he’s making sandwiches and playing his accordion and the next he’s doing copious amounts of drugs. Wood is also fantastic in her role as Madonna, who acts as the villain in the film. Madonna being the villain in a Weird Al biographical movie might be the weirdest sentence you have read today, but it is far from the weirdest thing in this movie.
Weird is straight up weird, in every sense of the word. The movie isn’t even based in our reality and that might be the best thing about it. The jokes in this movie make fun of our reality and how artists lives are dramatized for the sakes of selling movie tickets. Almost all of the jokes land and at times, you’ll find yourself laughing uncontrollably. The story makes zero sense but in case you haven’t figured it out yet, that is not the point of the movie.
Weird is excellent, probably the funniest movie of the year and does all of this while staying true to the essence of Weird Al. I highly recommend this movie to anyone even if you aren’t familiar with Weird Al’s Music.
5 Stars
