Walk Hard:The Dewey Cox Story (R)
Mike:
Scott:
Scott: Tonight we are reviewing Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
, a movie about a how a young boy faces early adversity and rises above it. Who am I kidding? This is a stupid-funny, spoof movie.
What did you think Mike?
Mike: You said it, dumb, but funny. I laughed all the way through. It probably helps if you've seen Walk the Line or Ray.
What did you think?
Scott: It was funny. Some of the stuff on the screen made me groan, but it wasn't too bad. Normally when you see spoof movies, they are like Scary Movie. This was a lot smarter movie than those other spoof movies.
There was also a spoof of Return of the Jedi.
Mike: A number of movies are spoofed in here, but only nerds like us would notice the Star Wars reference.
Mike: It was also kind of a rude comedy in the vein of Knocked Up.
Scott: Yes, a few scenes come to mind. Of course, with a title like this movie, you would expect some crude humor.
Mike: There are definitely as many Cox jokes as you would expect.
Scott: Surprisingly, the language isn't as bad as you would expect. It's rated R, but mostly for the drug use. They threw a little nudity in there as well, just to keep you on your toes.
Scott: John C. Reilly is Dewey Cox, a musician with a troubled past. At an early age, tragedy struck his life and the tragedy forever shaped him. He becomes a music star at age 14 and is soon on the road with his hit song Walk Hard. He meets Edith (Kristen Wiig – who I didn’t recognize) at his first show (she is 12), and she starts popping out babies.
Mike: It’s nice to see Reilly as a lead for a change and I think he does a good job. He sure does have bad hair for most of the movie, though.
Scott: I don't agree with you. I didn't see anything really unique to this role for him. Often I could close my eyes and see Will Ferrell. I thought he was almost a clone of Ferrell in this.
Mike: He's a funny guy and gets to break out and not be the straight guy to someone like Ferrell for a change. It also helps that he is surrounded by a hugely funny cast. We see a lot of Saturday Night Live veterans, Judd Apatow regulars and even some people from the TV show The Office.
Scott: And by ‘hugely funny cast’ you mean a large cast of funny people. I haven't seen so many recognizable stars in a movie in some time.
Mike: There are many people that you will recognize, but not necessarily know their names.
Scott: Most recognizable would be Cox’s wife Darlene Madison played by Jenna Fischer. I haven't seen her in much outside of The Office; it was great to see her in this. She looks great and really shows you a different side of her abilities.
Mike: She, like in Blades of Glory, gets a chance to be very attractive instead of mousy like on TV. She needs to be in more movies.
I like the spoofing of all the different eras of music. While they are spoofing, it gives them a chance to throw in some famous characters, like Elvis and the Beatles. All the Beatles will seem very familiar.
Scott: And Buddy Holly played by the vertically challenged Frankie Muniz.
The scene with the Beatles has a good number of well known actors. The game is to figure out who they all are; some have pretty good makeup on, or had only minor roles in other movies.
Mike: Not true about the minor roles. All of them have recently had leading roles in recent films. Still we will let you guess who is who.
Scott: Not all, the person I am thinking of, hasn't had his own movie. He's the hard one to guess. Gerry Bednob from 40 Year Old Virgin, plays the Maharishi. He was a trip in that movie.
Mike: My favorite supporting actor was SNL veteran Tim Meadows. His drug humor just cracked me up.
Scott: I liked him in this. He was much better than he was on SNL.
Mike: Hold on, remember you are talking about The Ladies Man. Not enough there for a movie, but a great run of skits.
Scott: That's debatable.
Mike: This gem was written by Apatow and Jake Kasdan. This is definitely the year of the Apatow.
Scott: Kasdan directed this movie too. He also directed Orange County and several Freaks and Geeks episodes. I guess that's where he met up with Apatow.
Apatow was also a producer on this movie.
Mike: I have been a fan of Apatow since Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. I'm glad to see him getting recognized. It looks like he now has a ton of stuff in the pipeline.
This movie almost makes up for Orange County.
Um, maybe not.
Scott: There's your Jack Black connection.
Mike: I just thought the same thing.
Scott: The music in the movie was surprisingly good for all its spoofiness.
Mike: Some of the lyrics were funny or even ridiculous, but they all had the right sound for the era the represented.
Scott: Reilly, if that was actually him, had a pretty good voice. It kind of sounded like him, so it may have been him,
Mike: Same with June Carter, I mean Jenna Fisher, if the voices weren’t dubbed.
Scott: I don't think that was her though. I couldn't pick up any traces of her voice in there.
So how do you rate this?
Mike: In give this a 3.5 overall and a 4 for comedy. This movie had me laughing all night.
And you?
Scott: I give this a 3.5 overall and a 4 for a spoof comedy. I don't want to call it a smart movie, since it's a dumb movie, but compared to other spoofs, it was pretty smart.
Mike: It will be hard to walk out of the theater during this story.
