DVD Features Another Woeful Adaptation of SNL Skit
MacGruber is a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live (SNL). Each episode is designed as a thinly-veiled spoof of MacGyver, the popular TV series from the Eighties that revolved around the daring exploits of a resourceful secret agent who'd served in Vietnam as a bomb defusal expert. In the SNL parody, however, Will Forte plays the title character as a butterfingered bungler who invariably gets distracted from his assignment and fails to deactivate the explosive in time to prevent himself from being blown to smithereens.
Whoever decided it might be a good idea to try to flesh out this two-minute skit into an hour-and-a-half long feature film, must be the same genius who thought that we needed such equally-abysmal, SNL-inspired spinoffs as The Ladies Man (2000), Superstar (1999), A Night at the Roxbury (1998), Stuart Saves His Family (1995), It's Pat (1994) and Coneheads (1993). Other than The Blues Brothers (1980) and Wayne's World (1992), these ill-advised endeavors have uniformly proven to be pretty disastrous.
In the case of MacGruber, what we're dealing with is a particularly-reprehensible, one-trick pony which relies on incessant profanity and crude appeals to baser instincts as its primary brand of humor. For instance, there's a running joke which gets stale fast in the pronunciation of the villain Dieter Von Cunth's (Val Kilmer) surname, since the "h" is silent. This affords MacGruber countless opportunities to spout offensive double entendres on the order of "It's time to pound some Cunth."
Fans of infantile gross-out gags might finds themselves titillated by the sight of MacGruber's pimply posterior as he prances across the screen buck naked with a stalk of celery stuck in his anal cleft for no apparent reason beyond comic relief. As for a storyline, there is a rudimentary plot to follow for those still considering checking out this insult the intelligence. It's of the formulaic "soldier of fortune coaxed of retirement and reassembles a crack team of commandos in order to save the world from his diabolical nemesis in possession of a nuclear warhead" variety.
To the surprise of no one, the film's fulcrum predictably pivots around whether or not MacGruber will be able to defuse the missile before the madman has a chance to launch the weapon at the White House. A third-rate production that looks like it was improvised on the spot with a lack of conviction by a foul-mouthed, ADD-afflicted exhibitionist desperate for attention.
Sleazy does it!
Poor (0 stars)
Rated R for violence, profanity, nudity, crude humor and graphic sexuality.
Running time: 95 Minutes
Distributor: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
DVD Extras: Deleted scene, gag reel, and a feature commentary with the director, scriptwriter and star Will Forte.
To see a trailer for MacGruber, visit:
To order a copy of MacGruber on DVD, visit: B002ZG98B4
Kam Williams is a syndicated film and book critic who writes for 100+ publications. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Online, the African-American Film Critics Association, and the NAACP Image Awards Nominating Committee. Contact him through NewsBlaze.
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