WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY (2022) is a satirical biopic about Weird Al Yankovic, a movie that embodies his off-kilter brand of comedy. Great cast, a lot of heart, and a solid conceit, only to really love it, you have to love Weird Al’s kind of humor.
The movie rolls out as a typical rock star biopic, starting in Weird Al’s childhood, when his parents forbade him from being weird and playing the accordion. He winds up playing anyway, becoming popular in the process, and once he starts changing the lyrics to popular songs to comedic effect, he becomes the greatest rock star who ever lived. Madonna, however, has other plans…
When I saw the off-the-hook trailer featuring Daniel Radcliffe, who’s like the Nicholas Cage of really colorful and weird movies, I was eager to catch this, hoping to see Weird Al depicted by way of Hunter S. Thompson. Instead, it rolls out more like a straight satire of typical biopics (something WALK HARD did so well), based on the conceit that satirizing pop songs was pure genius that propelled Weird Al to the status of the greatest rock star ever.
It’s the kind of thing that works if you love Weird Al and share his silly brand of humor. It isn’t exactly my thing–even back in the day, the comedy for me was all in satirizing the music videos, not really the songs themselves. Still, it’s wonderfully earnest, and the movie comes at you with a lot of heart and general silliness. It’s the kind of film that says, God, lighten up and have a little fun, why don’t you. Nonetheless, for me, it was like a good comedy sketch overstretched into a feature-length movie.
So overall, I’m not sure I can say I loved WEIRD, or even liked it all that much to be dead honest, but I can say it’s fun, there’s a nostalgia trip there if nothing else, and if you have a goofy sense of humor like Weird Al’s, you might dig it a lot.
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