A SATURDAY Night Live sketch is spun into a movie length feature next week when mullet-modelling maverick MacGruber hits the big screen.
Following the death of his wife by the sinister villain Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer), the legendary MacGruber (Will Forte) is called out of hiding to battle his nemesis once more.
Armed with the (supposed) ability to transform everyday items into deadly weapons and with a penchant for tearing throats out, MacGruber assembles a deadly team including rookie soldier Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe) and the glamorous Vicki St Elmo (Kristen Wiig).
But with Von Cunth holding a nuclear bomb, can the most decorated soldier ever known stop him in time?
Spoof
Parodying the gun-hating, gadget constructing American TV character MacGyver, MacGruber side-steps the usual trappings of a spoof to bring a rather tacit offering.
When you take a look under the bonnet, the individual pieces of the film don’t inspire much confidence.
Directed by one of the writers of dire sketch “comedy” Extreme Movie with a relative unknown (on British shores) in the starring role alongside Ryan ‘what happened?’ Phillippe and Val ‘weren’t you Batman once?’ Kilmer, there is little to get excited over.
And a the opening credits roll it appears the fears are confirmed.
But once the Hot Shots Part Deux inspired intro is taken care of and the characters are clumsily introduced, MacGruber starts to find its stride.
Ridiculous but fun
Ridiculous it may be, but the action, razor sharp satire and plentiful slapstick securely ramp throughout the brief 90 minute runtime.
Dunked head first in impressively fresh 80s mockery (complete with inappropriate car music), Forte makes a fantastically arrogant, insecure and incompetent character amiable despite depraved, bottom-of-the-barrel scraping flaws.
Phillippe tries to play the straight man and does engage in some amusing banter with his bumbling lead, but spends a majority of the movie looking embarrassed (none more so than during a head-shakingly cringe-worthy climactic ending).
It is left to Judd Apatow regular Kristen Wiig to bring a little class to the proceedings, which she does regardless of some of the most shocking love scenes committed to celluloid this year.
MacGruber is not a clever comedy. Riddled with bad language, lewd acts and hugely inappropriate dialogue, it firmly stands in the childish and idiotic category.
But for a puerile, juvenile and plain silly piece of escapism, it ticks the boxes.
5/10 - A Marmite movie: you’ll love it or loathe it.