When making a film about a parodist, what could be more honest than turning it into a parody of the biopic genre itself? Weird: The Al Yankovic Story isn't remotely true except in spirit, since this film is every bit as absurd and downright silly as its subject.
Following a childhood of slapstick trauma and rebellious polka parties, an adult "Weird Al" Yankovic is played by a jacked-as-hell Daniel Radcliffe (who has certainly built a fun career for himself since his perilous beginnings as a child star). Imitating the self-serious formula of music biopics like Walk the Line, a string of knowingly overwrought scenes show what inspired some of Al's best-known parodies (making a sandwich leads to "My Bologna," etc.). As his fame grows, he heads down a dangerous path of alcohol and violence thanks to that villainous temptress Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood).
Weird commits to the bit, continually one-upping itself with ridiculousness and throwing in as many celebrity cameos as possible (including Yankovic himself, of course, playing a greedy record exec). It's a formula that can only result in the film going totally off the deep end in terms of strangeness, and Weird goes there — it's playing as part of TIFF's Midnight Madness programming after all, so it follows in the tradition of surreal B movies.
The film is based on director Eric Appel's 2010 Funny or Die sketch, and it essentially does the exact same joke for 100 minutes — making this a fun but inessential lark. Given the choice of Funny or Die, it's funny.
(Roku)Following a childhood of slapstick trauma and rebellious polka parties, an adult "Weird Al" Yankovic is played by a jacked-as-hell Daniel Radcliffe (who has certainly built a fun career for himself since his perilous beginnings as a child star). Imitating the self-serious formula of music biopics like Walk the Line, a string of knowingly overwrought scenes show what inspired some of Al's best-known parodies (making a sandwich leads to "My Bologna," etc.). As his fame grows, he heads down a dangerous path of alcohol and violence thanks to that villainous temptress Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood).
Weird commits to the bit, continually one-upping itself with ridiculousness and throwing in as many celebrity cameos as possible (including Yankovic himself, of course, playing a greedy record exec). It's a formula that can only result in the film going totally off the deep end in terms of strangeness, and Weird goes there — it's playing as part of TIFF's Midnight Madness programming after all, so it follows in the tradition of surreal B movies.
The film is based on director Eric Appel's 2010 Funny or Die sketch, and it essentially does the exact same joke for 100 minutes — making this a fun but inessential lark. Given the choice of Funny or Die, it's funny.
