A Million Ways to Die in the West Review
Something died on that screen.
I am not feeling good about doing this review. The fact is I love most of Seth McFarlane’s work. Family Guy is awesome and I kind of man-crushed Seth when I reviewed Ted. I even love American Dad (we don’t need to talk about the Cleveland Show). Like a gangster slowly feeling his cement galoshes harden as the movie progressed I had a slow sinking sensation that I was going to have to come home and dump on a guy I really like.
However, honesty is my middle name (unless you are a hot chick, in which case it’s danger. Dave Danger Inman) and I owe it to you, my beloved readers, to tell you my honest opinion and that is this movie kind of falls on its face. There were a few really funny moments but the humor was either amazingly funny or just plain lame with no middle ground. Like a skinny kid and a fat kid on the same teeter totter the massive weight of the lame side kept this film from going anywhere. This issue was not aided at all by the fact that all the best jokes I have seen in about 5,000 trailer showings. Kudos to studio marketing department. I mean that sincerely. They really picked out the best meat for the trailers and left the rest for the carrion (i.e. the audience).
Like I said when I reviewed Ted Seth is really good at writing what are essentially clones of Family Guy but falters when he branches out from his preferred genre. In this film you can almost see him struggling against the restrictions of having to write a story that goes more than 22 minutes and being forced to adhere to some form of continuity. Pacing and editing were serious issues. 117 minutes is an awfully long time to assume you will keep your audience engaged in a comedy. You’re not showing the Lord of the Rings here.
