13) A Million Ways to Die in the West
This Seth MacFarlane “comedy” reeks more than an 1800s cowboy after a hard day’s work. Bloated, lazily written and as aimless as a tumbleweed in the wind, it’s the Family Guy creator’s most ill-conceived and plainly humorless project yet.
Unfortunately for him (and certainly for us), MacFarlane is A Million Ways to Die in the West‘s biggest problem. Why, oh why, with Liam Neeson, Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried and Neil Patrick Harris in the cast, would he think it wise to cast himself in the main role of a cowardly sheep farmer who goes up against an infamous outlaw? Chalk it up to major hubris. As a romantic lead, MacFarlane is plainly unbelievable. As a hero, he’s about as likable as ebola. And even his comic stylings – all snide wiseassery – are a poor fit for the period setting.
With MacFarlane working against it, A Million Ways to Die in the West was doomed to fail from day one. But the level of failure is astounding. It’s rare that a punchline lands, and the script exhausts itself with too much extraneous plot. The direction is amateurish. The Western setting itself feels oddly phony. Even Neil Patrick Harris, utterly wasted in a one-joke role, can’t energize the proceedings. In the end, for all its puerile body humor and vulgar back-and-forths, the worst thing about MacFarlane’s film is how lame it is.
