The Gods Have Been Tricking Us Since Year One!

Posted on June 25, 2009 - 1:19pm by michael So it's kind of a good thing that I went in to Year One with low expectations, because while it is not nearly as bad as some of the more uptight critics have been saying, it certainly requires a unique frame of mind in order to enjoy it properly. And by unique frame of mind, of course, I mean thoroughly immature or thoroughly intoxicated. Then again, it's important to realize that it was no mistake to cast two comic actors as well known as Jack Black and Michael Cera in a comedy about the dawn of mankind. Director Harold Ramis gives us a story that is meant to be about as realistic as a Monty Python movie, and had he gone a little lighter on the hairy oil rubs and poo-eating, he may have come close to that level of comedy.

Okay, that's a powerful statement, but even though the movie is pretty thin in the comedic inventiveness department it does have a lot more laugh out loud moments than I anticipated. The laughs come from placing Jack Black and Michael Cera, essentially playing themselves, into the time of the cavemen, when the dating scene involved clubbing your girl of choice on the head and dragging her back to your hut. You don't have to fear rejection, you just have to make sure to hit her hard enough so she doesn't take the club away and start hitting you back. MAN I was born in the wrong millenium!

As you may or may not know, a lot of critics have been slamming the movie for a whole variety of reasons, which is further proof that not all film critics can be trusted. If nothing else, the script does great things with anachronisms. By placing our modern mentalities in the distant past, the movie makes all kinds of comments not only on what the world was like back then but how it has changed. Besides the obvious, of course.

[caption id="attachment_41696" align="alignleft" width="306" caption="Zed and Oh party like it's A.D. 0001."][/caption]

But don't take notes, because even though the story relies on real things about history (and religious history), it's hardly chronological. My own knowledge of human history has dwindled somewhat, given that the last Anthropology class I took was nearly 10 years ago, but I'm pretty sure that the "hunting and gathering" days weren't so close to the time of the Garden of Eden, which may or may not even be real. Nevertheless, we are introduced to Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera), who are a hunter and a gatherer, respectively, until one day Zed takes a bite from a glowing plastic apple from the Tree of Knowledge, and they both cease to be hunters or gatherers at all and become fugitives.

Soon we learn about the rest of the occupations in the social structure - farmers, herdsmen, Jews ("the righteous ones but not good at sports"), etc. Also making cameos are various Biblical figures, like Cain, Abel, Isaac, Abraham, Adam & Eve, and the long lost paradise of Sodom. Wouldn't that be a great college vacation spot?

[caption id="attachment_41697" align="alignright" width="319" caption="Our heroes experience the heart-pounding thrill of their first hay ride. "][/caption]

Also consider the literary references! Remember that Mark Twain book 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'? The title says it all, but in the book a 19th Century American travels back to the time of King Arthur where his suspicious appearance and behavior ultimately gets him condemned to death. Luckily, he remembers that this is the exact moment of a historical solar eclipse (this is where the moon blots out the light of the sun) and so at the opportune moment he raises his hands to the sky and makes like he's causing the sun to be blotted out. Needless to say, his death sentence is cancelled and he's worshipped as a God.

I don't want to go into the specific details of the similar scene in Year One, but I'm always pleased when I see classic stories from literature put into the scripts of what look on the outside to be, forgive the expression, bonehead comedies. Year One certainly is a bonehead comedy in a lot of ways, and it may be true that you have to consciously allow yourself to enjoy it, but there is some genuinely intelligent and entertaining comedy below the hairy surface...