Cecil B. DeMille meets Monty Python meets Superbad, Year One has some funny moments, but it eventually flops.
Comment
06/19/09
Year One (2009)
15
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:154
Fresh:23
Rotten:131
Average Rating:3.8/10
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
101 - 120 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
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
The picture's desperate, teen-baiting assemblage of fart jokes, dick jokes, poop-nibbling and urine inhalation are a constant reminder that no matter how ancient the setting's supposed to be, the land of lame Hollywood japery is always near.
06/19/09
At its best, "Year One" is offensive. ... At its worst, however, it's downright repulsive.
06/19/09
The obligatory gross-out moments function as camouflage for what proves to be a surprisingly trenchant critique of the human penchant for violence, greed, deceit, hubris and, especially, religious superstition.
06/19/09
This is Jack Black and Michael Cera doing Jack Black and Michael Cera, the problem is that that was funny about three years ago and now it's just kind of predictable and boring.
06/19/09
[Ramis] does little with the loss of innocence idea, and doesn't really find the laughs to make the premise go the distance.
06/19/09
Top CriticYear One is little more than Religulous with fart jokes.
06/19/09
Year One seems destined to earn the dubious distinction of being the one movie released in the summer of 2009 that made another trapped-in-time adventure, Land of the Lost, seem like a masterpiece by comparison.
06/19/09
When did comedy writing become such a lost art, replaced by the improvisational byplay of talented but increasingly familiar players left to think up funny lines for an amusing situation?
06/18/09
Often drags and should have been retitled as The NeverEnding, Painfully Unfunny Story. It falls on its face both a comedy and as a satire with a lazy, asinine and mean-spirited script. Even the outtakes don't induce any real laughs.
06/18/09
It's a bit flabby and careless, but it's also gleefully stupid, and it has the ability to knock you off guard and make you giggle helplessly.
06/18/09
Instead of anything clever or original as one might expect from Harold Ramis; we're subjected to gross-out jokes. Note to Mr. Ramis; the Fountain of Comedy Youth is probably not located in a sewer.
06/18/09
Parental Content Review
06/18/09
"Year One" is the kind of stuff Mel Brooks would have whipped up back in the day -- and, frankly, whipped through in about a half-hour.
06/18/09
Harold Ramis...serves up some low brow humor in a fitful script, but his film is elevated into the ranks of pleasurably stupid humor by terrific comic turns from Cera and a game Oliver Platt
06/18/09
Mostly Year One moves along ploddingly, stepping frequently into bathroom humor and never quite funny enough to justify its high concept; when it's over, it quickly slips away.
06/18/09
Latest News for Year One
June 20, 2009:
Crude cavemen encounter Biblical events in raunchy road comedy. 
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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.
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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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