Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

Typically with my reviews, you'll see me segment them into sections, the problem here I don't have many bullet points to go over. This movie is an untrue story about the story of Weird Al Yankovic, largely because the real story isn't exactly worthy of a movie. Nothing wrong with that, but we have to cross a bridge when talking about this movie, and it's going to be a borderline make-or-break issue.

I would say about eighty percent of this movie is just Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. I am not one to lay into a show or game for borrowing heavily from something else, drawing inspiration can lead to some great show. Here, however, I can line up so many beats from one movie to the next it gets ridiculous. There is part of me that just wants to say go watch Walk Hard instead because it just did all of these jokes better, with an overall stronger cast. Mind you, all this is fine in Weird, but there is no getting around the better direction of the other.

So what about that remaining twenty percent? A lot of the jokes I laughed at were the things that work purely because this is a fictional telling of Al and references to all the real-life silliness. That said, if you had no idea about any of this, I can't help but wonder what someone who knows nothing of the story behind Amish Paradise is going to think about some random guy with some crazy ass corn rows in his hair shaking his fist angrily for a reason that is never divulged. A good chunk of what is good in this movie is going to go over the heads of people who aren't avid fans.

Some things work regardless, like seeing Al himself play a character that is reacting to the horrible things people are saying to the Al in the movie. There are a good number of laughs that come just from that alone. As well as seeing how seriously Radcliff plays the role of Al, he and the whole world are acting like what he does are something more than goofy tracks to make people laugh.

At the end of the day, I find the movie very disappointing. I did get a laugh out of watching it, but unless you are a huge fan of Al I can't see any reason to invest your time in this when you can just go watch Walk Hard.