Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: The Kentucky Fried Movie
Likes: The Onion, Good skit-based movies
Dislikes: This movie
Hates:

The Movie
Going direct to video can be a noble venture (kinda.) Though the majority of the films that take this route are pandering action and horror films, there's nothing wrong with the concept of doing lower-budget movies and skipping the theaters to go directly to the viewers. The stigma with direct to video lies in when it's a film's Plan B. It's only worse when Plan B comes about five year's after the movie wrapped. That's just what the story is when it comes to The Onion Movie.

I have long enjoyed the writing in the parody newspaper, as the Onion's ability to satirize current events and sarcastically report non-news has been amazingly consistent and fantastically funny. But when it was announced that they would be making the leap to a feature film, red flags went up. Would these masters of print comedy be able to make their style and tone work on-screen for the length of a movie? Well, with David Zucker on board as an executive producer, bringing his Kentucky Fried Movie experience to the table, there was some hope, but in the end, the film is uneven and worse, unfunny, which is why it's been sitting on a shelf somewhere, waiting to be released to an unwitting public.

The film follows a similar plot to Kentucky Fried Movie and Amazon Women on the Moon, as you watch as someone watches a TV show, in this case the Onion News, and transition to the people watching it and the commercials breaks during the show. Along the way there's a side plot about the network anchor having a Network-style meltdown due to corporate interference with his news, which leads only to one of the most ridiculous endings I think I've ever seen, bringing together basically every recognizable character from the previous 70 minutes. If this element had been cut from the film, it probably would have made a huge improvement, speeding things up and letting the focus fall on the individual sketches.

The news stories will be recognizable to fans of the newspaper, including bits about solving obesity by redefining it and finding depression is moreprevalent in losers. Familiarity doesn't lead to laughs though, leaving the new non-news material to carry the load. Since that's obviously not the paper's strength, it obviously puts the film at a disadvantage from the start. It quickly becomes clear that the writers turned to sex and racism to load their joke guns, with plenty of sketches about black people, rape, penises, gay sex and the Britney Spears-like Melissa Cherry, a pop-tart who claims her sexually-charged songs, like "Take Me from Behind" or "Shoot Your Love On Me," are about friendship. The filmmakers are so in love with this one-note character (who was likely much funnier back in 2003) that she is in approximately 45% of the film. Oddly, the songs she sings are extremely catchy, sound like they could be on the radio, and are probably the best thing produced as part of this film.

There are some laughs to be found in places, like the cheap joke that is the Alzheimer's rally or the Little-Known Stereotypes segment, but the film doesn't seem to know how to make them work together. Worse yet, at one point, the film gives up on the concept, and throws in a sketch about a role-playing game (starring the great Jed Rees (GalaxyQuest) that has no connection AT ALL with the rest of the film. It's not a commercial, not a news story, and the characters aren't anywhere near a TV. Considering how little the film had to follow in terms of storytelling rules, somehow they couldn't manage to stick to this one minor concept. Plus, they wasted Rees, one of the film's select few recognizable faces, including Paul Scheer ("Human Giant"), Steven Segal (parodying himself in the film trailer Cockpuncher) and comic Alonzo Bodden. Incredibly, and unbelievably sadly, this is also probably the last time we get to see a "new" performance by Rodney Dangerfield on screen, which might be the biggest crime perpetuated by the filmmakers.

The DVD
We received a screener disc, so we can't give you any word on the packaging, but the one-disc release has a static, anamorphic widescreen main menu with options to watch the film, select scenes, adjust languages and check out the special features. Audio options include English Dolby Digital 5.1 and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks, while subtitles are available in English, Spanish and French, along with closed captioning.

The Quality
The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen, and looks way better than it probably should, with a solid level of detail and appropriate color. There's nothing obviously wrong with the image, as there's no visible dirt and no digital artifacts evident.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track plays with a different sound treatment for the news broadcast versus the commercials and non-studio footage, resulting in very low center-channel sound followed by full-room blow-outs on the commercials. It's a bit distracting the way it fluctuates, and results in some dialogue being almost inaudible, especially when spoken in the backgrounds of scenes. Only by watching with subtitles did I catch some lines actually being spoken.

The Extras
There's some limited bonus material included here, starting with a 9:30 reel of deleted scenes, which are mostly extended versions of parts of the finished film, like even more Melissa Cherry material, and some chopped moments, like a Texan electrocution of a mentally retarded prisoner. What was cut from the film is certainly not missed.

The other extra is a 3:30 of outtakes, with some of the cast flubbing lines or otherwise messing up. Like it usually is with such material, it's cute, but comes across better in a non-comedy, where serious scenes are broken by laughter.

Also included are three trailers for other Fox DVDs.

The Bottom Line
Once upon a time, I had high hopes for this movie, but now that I've seen it, there's nothing but disappointment. It's a lot like when Michael Jordan decided to try baseball after a successful basketball career. Just because he was good at one thing, didn't mean he wouldn't be one of the worst players ever to step onto a baseball diamond. Replace "players" with "films" and "step onto a baseball diamond" with "be placed into my DVD player," and you've got The Onion Movie to a T. While the image is pretty good, the audio is just so-so and the extras are lacking as well. Though it hurts me to say it, after the film's long road to mediocrity, this is one you're better off avoiding.

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*The Reviewer's Bias section is an attempt to help readers use the review to its best effect. By knowing where the reviewer's biases lie on the film's subject matter, one can read the review with the right mindset.