A Million Ways To Die In The West
I, for one, was fairly excited when I heard that Seth MacFarlane was going to try his hand at a Blazing Saddles-esque, R-rated western comedy. I thought that Ted was a really fun ride, and the old west was just ripe for parody and satire, yet so few touch it. Do you wanna know why so few touch it? Watch this movie and it becomes clear.
Blazing Saddles mastered this genre, and anything else just ends up feeling like a bad imitation that is trying too hard. While I will admit that A Million Ways To Die In The West has some genuinely funny bits, they are so infrequent that you walk away from the film feeling that it was unremarkable.
Honestly, I think this movie would have worked a thousand times better had MacFarlane forgone his massive ego and hired another actor for the role. Had he put the right person in his role (Sam Rockwell, perhaps), it could have been divine. The problem was, we all KNEW we were watching MacFarlane. That, matched up with some fairly flat writing and a few gross out jokes just led to this film being way over-hyped and far too unfunny. Maybe if there was a stuffed bear in it smoking a bong it would’ve worked better. Who knows?