The Onion Movie (2008)

Not much should be said or time spent on reviewing such a thing. The Onion News is a thing online, and they made a film about it. The plot is basically that 'Norm' plays the traditional old school news broadcaster and is unhappy what his network is turning into, and then there's this whole development at the end and stuff, but none of that is actually important. What's actually significant, if at all ! - is the silly, even stupid but funny humor on display. They'll make fun of all sorts of clichés from today's world, from your Britney Spears type pop singer to those cheesy kungfu films, to ads or news stories, society... it's all there as you'd imagine it, and it's fun. For a first viewing at least, it makes for an unpredictable, dynamic and diverse experience in random and completely unadulterated humor. You should find at least some of it funny, if not, as most people I'd imagine, all of it fairly entertaining. I wouldn't call it 'bad' by any stretch, but it's no comedy gold either. Humor is one of these very subjective things: give it a try, watch the first few sketches.

Since the Scary Movie films, we've had to endure Date Movie, Epic Movie Disaster Movie, Dance Flick ad nauseum; it seems this trend will never end. 20th Century Fox, who are distributing The Onion Movie clearly didn't know how to handle this movie in the UK, so they slapped the new title News Movie on it.The Onion Movie is a lot better than the collection of weak parodies it's been lumped in with. While it is true that some of the satire has dated and more than a handful of the jokes lack great punchlines, the fact is that this is still an amusing way to spend 75 minutes. The majority of the film takes the form of mock news broadcasts, from America's Finest News Source – The Onion. Eventually a slight narrative thread begins to link the sequences and a denouement brings it all together. But like some other films with the "Movie" moniker it's all essentially an afterthought.Steven Seagal almost steals the movie in a spoof trailer for a film called Cockpuncher but it's the over-the-top Britney Spears parodies written by Asche & Spencer that are the highlights. Performed by Lisa Marie Furth, the songs of the imaginary Melissa Cherry character (played by Sarah McElliot) are near perfect imitations of conventional pop tunes and it's a shame that no soundtrack is available.Directed by Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire (but credited to James Kleiner), The Onion Movie was produced by David Zucker, director of the first two The Naked Gun movies and the last two Scary Movie sequels among many others. While it doesn't come close to the former it's certainly no worse than the latter. In this age of lazy comedy writing that's probably the most praise one give a film like this.

The Onion Movie kicks a*s! Who would've thought that a film about 1 1/2 hours of news report could be so entertaining, and hilarious! It is best to leave your mind goes blank, and to not make any assumptions while watching this film. It'll certainly better that way. Hard-hitting jokes, straight-up commentary without the need to be politically correct, and uncanny ability to tickle your funny bones! It is presented in an unassuming way, letting the viewers to decide on its validity. Some viewers may get offended by the jokes, but it is not the intention of the film (or is it?) All in all, a wonderful film, make in an ingenious way, and delivered the right punchlines!

A lot of people are familiar with The Onion News. The Onion News is a news service that parodies modern news right down to the Horoscopes. Spoofing modern news with spoof news filled with humor and scatological references, The Onion News has been offering a scathing satire on the modern news experience for years. In 2003, they opted to make a movie filled with the same satire of the modern world you'd find in the newspapers. Apparently, though, due to poor test screenings the movie was shelved and finally released on DVD in 2008 rather than theatrically. So how does it stack up? The Onion Movie is mainly a group of skits, working as news stories, commercials, movie spots, etc. Behind the skits there's a working TV news report: The Onion News "The World's Greatest News Source". The Onion News has just been bought out by a global conglomerate who requires the news to plug their movies on the air. News anchor, Norm Archer, thinks this compromises the integrity of the news, and this leads to an interesting, and funny, confrontation at the end of the movie.The Onion Movie is a really funny movie with a few unfortunate down spots. It does a fairly good job of mixing the politically incorrect (Little Known Racial Stereotypes, Terrorist Training Video, etc.), with satire of celebrities (Melissa Cherry, a Britney Spears knock off who sings songs like: "Take Me From Behind," and lyrics like, "So, let me give you some affection - just below your waist" which are apparently just about friendship because she's a virgin), and satire of society (News report: "The internet went down for three hours this morning, plunging the nation into productivity. The outage, which caused major work startages from New York to California, prevented an estimated 120 million American employees from messing around on the web at work"). Also, there are some funny cameos including a spoof commercial hosted by Michael Bolton for a children's charity organization, but the best is Steven Segal as the Cockpuncher.While those skits work very well, and the majority of the rest do, some skits fall flat on their face. Skits like the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast spoof and the majority of a skit dealing with teenagers playing D&D are just not funny. Also the plot, while inherently harmless and flimsy, adds quite a few deadspots to the movie taking away from the fun of many of the skits.The Onion Movie is definitely worth a watch though. While not as funny as I hoped it was funnier than I expected. Naturally, for those of you who know of The Onion, know to expect nudity and cursing, so this is not a movie to watch with your kids. Check it out, and hope you enjoy!