Dare to be stupid
The route that Weird: The Al Yankovic Story took to the screen is, well, weird. The feature is based on a short film that was originally released on the comedy website Funny or Die back in 2010, which presented a faux trailer for a Walk the Line style movie about Weird Al, as played by Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul. In addition to inventing a sci-fi world where Paul effortlessly made the leap to movies, it provided fodder for parody music savant "Weird" Al to play while he was changing costumes backstage at his concerts. Eventually, enough people asked when the hell this movie was going to come out (no shade to "Weird" Al's live audiences, but they maybe missed the point on that one) that he decided to team with the short's director Eric Appel to co-write a script and bring it to fabulous life on everybody's 22nd favorite streaming service, The Roku Channel.
The result is the so-fictionalized-it's-pretty-much-just-fiction Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which follows a young Al Yankovic (Richard Aaron Anderson in an unconvincing wig, then David Bloom in an unconvincing wig, then Daniel Radcliffe in an unconvincing wig with an unconvincing American accent) through the early stages of his life where he chafes against his alpha male father's hatred of polka music and re-writing the lyrics to popular songs. Eventually he strikes out on his own and partners with Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson), penning such parody hits as "My Bologna," "I Love Rocky Road," and "Another One Rides the Bus," rocketing him to instant superstardom.
Wanting to boost sales of her single "Like a Virgin," Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood) seduces Al with sex, booze, and a life of debauchery, turning him into a self-destructive rock star in pretty much 24 hours, leaving him to grapple with the broken pieces of the life he's built for himself.
To put it frankly, Weird just isn't all that weird. The opening act is by far the best when it comes to achieving a kind of cartoon world where polka music thrives in various teenage dens of iniquity, but a huge chunk of the second half of the movie is dominated by a single driving factor, which is "wouldn't it be funny if Madonna did this wild made-up thing?" And it sure would! However, it is considerably less funny when Evan Rachel Wood's barely passable impression of Madonna does said things. Her outfits are doing 70% of the work here, so when the joke becomes "have you seen what Madonna is wearing now?" it all flies out the window.
This is a shame, because when the comedy in Weird is working, it's incredibly charming. It's less wacky and gag-saturated than folks might expect from watching his music videos (to be clear, I more or less love "Weird" Al, with the caveat that like any humorist, some of his material hasn't aged well), but it's actually got a solid handle on skewering many of the most clichéd lines and beats of Hollywood Oscarbait cinema.
Weird also provides the extremely basic, lizard-brain pleasure of presenting fans with a jukebox musical of songs that they know and like, which really is the reason music biopics keep getting made in the first place. The songs are dubbed by a present-day "Weird" Al, which is somewhat alarming, but at least works in the very specific context of the world this film is trying to create. Ditto Radcliffe himself, who would be a film-breakingly bad casting choice in a different movie, but thankfully his uncanny valley "Weird" Al thrives on his total commitment to the role.
Unfortunately, there just isn't that much else to say about Weird. It's mostly affable and charming, and will certainly serve fans of "Weird" Al well enough, but it's not really doing anything that Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story didn't already do, and better. Considering the fact that Walk Hard came out even before the original Weird short film, this whole endeavor sort of feels like a bust, which is a bummer because it's a perfectly fun movie taken in its own right.
Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about 80's slasher movies than he has any right to. He's a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.
The result is the so-fictionalized-it's-pretty-much-just-fiction Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which follows a young Al Yankovic (Richard Aaron Anderson in an unconvincing wig, then David Bloom in an unconvincing wig, then Daniel Radcliffe in an unconvincing wig with an unconvincing American accent) through the early stages of his life where he chafes against his alpha male father's hatred of polka music and re-writing the lyrics to popular songs. Eventually he strikes out on his own and partners with Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson), penning such parody hits as "My Bologna," "I Love Rocky Road," and "Another One Rides the Bus," rocketing him to instant superstardom.
Wanting to boost sales of her single "Like a Virgin," Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood) seduces Al with sex, booze, and a life of debauchery, turning him into a self-destructive rock star in pretty much 24 hours, leaving him to grapple with the broken pieces of the life he's built for himself.
To put it frankly, Weird just isn't all that weird. The opening act is by far the best when it comes to achieving a kind of cartoon world where polka music thrives in various teenage dens of iniquity, but a huge chunk of the second half of the movie is dominated by a single driving factor, which is "wouldn't it be funny if Madonna did this wild made-up thing?" And it sure would! However, it is considerably less funny when Evan Rachel Wood's barely passable impression of Madonna does said things. Her outfits are doing 70% of the work here, so when the joke becomes "have you seen what Madonna is wearing now?" it all flies out the window.
This is a shame, because when the comedy in Weird is working, it's incredibly charming. It's less wacky and gag-saturated than folks might expect from watching his music videos (to be clear, I more or less love "Weird" Al, with the caveat that like any humorist, some of his material hasn't aged well), but it's actually got a solid handle on skewering many of the most clichéd lines and beats of Hollywood Oscarbait cinema.
Weird also provides the extremely basic, lizard-brain pleasure of presenting fans with a jukebox musical of songs that they know and like, which really is the reason music biopics keep getting made in the first place. The songs are dubbed by a present-day "Weird" Al, which is somewhat alarming, but at least works in the very specific context of the world this film is trying to create. Ditto Radcliffe himself, who would be a film-breakingly bad casting choice in a different movie, but thankfully his uncanny valley "Weird" Al thrives on his total commitment to the role.
Unfortunately, there just isn't that much else to say about Weird. It's mostly affable and charming, and will certainly serve fans of "Weird" Al well enough, but it's not really doing anything that Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story didn't already do, and better. Considering the fact that Walk Hard came out even before the original Weird short film, this whole endeavor sort of feels like a bust, which is a bummer because it's a perfectly fun movie taken in its own right.
Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about 80's slasher movies than he has any right to. He's a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.
Categories: musicals, parodies, the dread biopic
