[A] sloppy, joke-poor mess of a pre-historical romp.
Comment
06/19/09
Year One (2009)
15
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:149
Fresh:23
Rotten:126
Average Rating:3.9/10
Consensus: Year One is a poorly executed, slapdash comedy in which the talent both in front of and behind the camera never seem to be on the same page.
Australian Theatrical Release:
Jun 18, 2009 Wide
US Box Office: $43,337,279
Synopsis: When a couple of lazy hunter-gatherers (Jack Black and Michael Cera) are banished from their primitive village, they set off on an epic journey through the ancient world in Columbia Pictures'... [More]
Starring: Jack Black, Michael Cera, Oliver Platt, David Cross
Director: Harold Ramis
Reviews for Year One
81 - 100 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Stuffed full of comic bits that don't work.
06/19/09
Black and Cera posed in cave-man outfits for an amusing poster. Then the movie was brought forth and things went downhill.
06/19/09
Year One has one joke, but it's a good one, played for many variations over the course of an often very funny comedy.
06/19/09
The big, blustery physical comedy of Jack Black makes for an amusing fit with Michael Cera’s quiet, self-deprecating humour in Year One.
06/19/09
Year One is a good short skit drawn out far, far too long, another big, dumb offering to the summer movie gods that is unlikely to appease or please anyone.
06/19/09
A thoroughly, sometimes gaggingly broad and sly conceptual laugh-in.
06/19/09
Top CriticNow, I know what you're thinking... any film featuring tribal girlfriends in animal skins and a trip to Sodom can't be all that bad. Well, trust me, it is.
06/19/09
There's no point to it, just a series of gags -- in both senses of the word.
06/19/09
Year One is a slapdash concoction with an overreliance on scatological gags and a long lag time between laughs. I freely admit that. Yet I have a certain affection for this movie, if only because of its conceptual simplicity.
06/19/09
Let's start with the praise because there won't be much: As comedy pairings go, you could do a lot worse than Jack Black and Michael Cera.
06/19/09
Expect to be amused, not hilarioused.
06/19/09
Somehow, despite the presence of those reliable actors and the highly advanced skills of comic veterans Harold Ramis and Judd Apatow behind the scenes, Year One manages to be a dud.
06/19/09
[S]et[s] back the noble causes of blasphemy, rational thinking, and humanism about a century... doesn't even have the nerve to be profane...
06/19/09
The jokes are so laden with groaners you almost expect to hear rim shots after every line.
06/19/09
Cecil B. DeMille meets Monty Python meets Superbad, Year One has some funny moments, but it eventually flops.
06/19/09
Audiences get clubbed by some pretty old shtick in Year One
06/19/09
Ramis seems paralyzed from the get-go, ineptly grappling with an overgrown Saturday Night Live routine that squanders every chance at clever humor it gets.
06/19/09
There's no shortage of anatomical jokes, scatological jokes, and fart jokes, toilet humor being the last refuge of a spent comedy writer.
06/19/09
Year One is easy to hate, especially if you loathe Jack Black's hammy shtick, think Michael Cera peaked in Arrested Development or you have a worn Bible in your bedroom... and you're not living in a Super 8. But I loved it.
06/19/09
Latest News for Year One
June 20, 2009:
Crude cavemen encounter Biblical events in raunchy road comedy. 
More...
June 19, 2009:
The Friday Harvest: This Week's Best Pictures, Posters, and Video
Happy Friday Harvest, a weekly round-up of the best pictures, posters, and videos that have become available for viewing/download on Rotten Tomatoes. Each section features the... More...
June 18, 2009:
Black's biggest idiot in the village, overly flirty heathen turned moronic messiah tries to hunt and gather copious hairy bodied babes who really know how to stroke their spears, while a shackled Cera pees upside down through his collar.
More...
June 18, 2009:
Box Office Guru Preview: Proposal and Year One Bring More Laughs
Five of the top six films are comedies right now but Hollywood believes that's not enough so two new laughers open on Friday to give moviegoers even more options. Sandra Bullock... More...
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