Year One Jack Black, Michael Cera, Oliver Platt, David Cross Director: Harold Ramis
What Year One has going for it more than anything else is the fierce determination of its two leads to enjoy themselves. It's infectious even when the humour falls flat or - as is so often the case with Jack Black - it is used to bludgeon you over the head. Veteran director Harold Ramis - he of Ghostbusters fame - knows how to ham things up with the best of them and allows a free hand to both Black and the uber dork Michael Cera (again playing that same guy from Juno, but this time in animal skins).
They are two Bible-era buddies determined to make it in life, even though they face ridicule at every turn. The plot is pointless really, save to say they hit the road and Ramis takes them to the fringes of many of the Bible's major events.
There are knowing nods to a few current events and many, many jokes about hairy women. Mel Brooks had fun with the same sort of things in History of the World, Part I, and much of the humour relies on a pair of primitive men with very modern-day manners.
The trick with slapstick is to never let your audience rest, lest they ponder what they are actually seeing. Ramis and Co never allow you to draw breath.
Extras: unrated version; deleted scenes; extended/alternate scenes; commentary with Ramis, Black and Cera; Year One: The Journey Begins making-of featurette; Alternate ending: Sodom Destruction; gag reel (unrated version) Sodom's Got 'Em!; Leeroy Jenkins: the gates of Sodom.
