Director: Seth Macfarlane.
Cast: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Silverman, Giovanni Ribisi,Christopher Lloyd.
Certificate: 15.
Running Time: 116 Minnutes.
Synopsis: After Albert backs out of a gunfight, his fickle girlfriend leaves him for another man. When a mysterious and beautiful woman rides into town, she helps him find his courage and they begin to fall in love. But when her husband, a notorious outlaw, arrives seeking revenge, the farmer must put his newfound courage to the test.
Seth MacFarlane is best known as the creator of animated hits Family Guy and American Dad, and two years ago he directed his first live-action film TED. The film became an instant hit, giving Mark Wahlberg the opportunity to flex his funny bone. The success of the film about a potty-mouthed teddy bear meant the studio not only agreed to a sequel but also granted MacFarlane money for his passion project, A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST .
Westerns were once the bread and butter of Hollywood film, but have faded away into near obscurity over the last twenty odd years. Within the genre there were many different sub-genres; Spaghetti, Singing Cowboy, Revenge Story, Ranch Story… the list is endless. Rather than focusing on one type of western to parody MacFarlane decided to take them all on, resulting in a film with a random string of set pieces punctuated with some gross-out comedy.
This is the first time that MacFarlane has put his physical self at the forefront of a story and the result is hit and miss. There’s no denying he’s a funny guy, but when surrounded by the calibre of cast present his lack of depth and range shows. In reality he doesn’t really do much other than stand around being awkward. The fact that he spends most of his screen time at the side of either Ribisi or Theron doesn’t help matters either, with Theron in particular running circles around her director. When not with MacFarlane, Theron almost seems like she’s acting in a different movie entirely and only cast mate Neeson is in on it.
TED had one of the greatest film cameos ever with FLASH GORDON’s Sam Jones and ‘Million Ways’ also features a big-cult-name cameo in the form of Doc Brown himself, Christopher Lloyd. It’s his appearance alongside all the other cameos that make the film worth watching, and there will be at least one that will take you by surprise.
Fans of slapstick and toilet humour will be entertained for a while, but at a run time of two hours even the most infantile of humour lovers will struggle to last the distance, and the film would have benefited greatly from being about half an hour shorter.
The filmic equivalent to the Cleveland show, A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST suffers from THE SIMPSONS MOVIE syndrome – funny in small doses, but does not scale well. Lets hope MacFarlane can redeem himself with TED 2.
[usr=2] A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST is released in cinemas from Friday 30th May.
