MacGruber

Noodles.

At what point will the producers over at Saturday Night Live stop subjecting the world to movies based on sketches that were funniest in the 6-7 minutes when they were initially aired? The list of mindless schlock from the SNL movie factory has more lemons than a citrus grove. Superstar, Ladies Man, Its Pat?, Coneheads; and I loved the Coneheads skits as a kid, but I really didn't need the hour and a half stupid monotone 20 years after the fact.

Now we are given MacGruber, and I'll be honest, I can't even force myself to watch SNL anymore so I had no idea this was a sketch until a friend enlightened me. According to Wikipedia, the original MacGruber sketch was a parody of the 80s series MacGuyver, only this bad ass is more of a dumb ass,  which passes for comedic gold. As I watched the trailer waiting for laughter that never came I kept wondering how during a recession people are still allowed to make movies that look this crappy. 

The special effects which seem over the top, the "knew it was coming" toilet humor, the obvious populist anger at Washington being the focus of the destruction, and attempting to add a hint of gravitas by enlisting Powers Boothe to growl his way through the stereotypical military commander role...Okay I'll admit right here that as a big fan of Mr. Boothe, this was the only highlight of the movie for me. Well that and when Val Kilmer asks the missile if it had ever been to Washington. I actually cracked a half smile on my first viewing.

Box Office: Wayne's World and Blues Brothers (the original, not that 2000 garbage) were the only SNL flicks that are worth a damn in my book. So since I don't see this movie being anywhere near as good as either of those classics I think this movie will tank. It only cost $10 Million to make this, which seems extremely low considering that I've seen what must have been millions of dollars in ads for this film for a couple months now. So my thoughts are its going to almost show a profit and finish up around $8.5 Million.

The Bouw-Man.

It looks like there could be a lot of funny scenes in this “Saturday Night Live” movie.  Although it’s always difficult to predict how a television skit will play as a full-length film, this one is in the fortunate position of having its storyline easily identified.  With “SNL” films such as “Night at the Roxbury,” “Superstar” and even “Wayne’s World,” the script could’ve gone any number of ways.  With “MacGruber” being a knockoff of the popular “MacGyver” television series, you know the plot will focus around something contrived from a popular episode.  That being said, you wonder if there’s enough name recognition among the cast members for this to have a successful run.  It’s obvious the studio is marketing this film extremely hard (as much if not more as any other “SNL” movie) so it will gain enough financial stability to make it into a franchise.  This worked for “Wayne’s World,” but other “SNL” movies were limited in their wide spread appeal.  With that being said, let’s hope that the studio didn’t use up all its funny scenes during the two minute plus preview.  It would be a shame if this laugh-out-loud trailer is nothing more than a tease for an audience ready to be entertained.


Hard to tell where this film will fall in the overall box office picture.  With a true lack of adult comedies in theaters right now, I’m predicting enough of laugh-starved America will make its way to see “MacGruber” this weekend.  Here’s hoping it doesn’t disappoint critically or financially.  Let’s go out on a limb for a $22 million opening weekend, despite its lack of star power.