There are around a million negative things to say about Seth McFarlane’s vanity project “A Million Ways to die In The West” but a couple of good things worth mentioning. Primarily, while everybody compares Seth’s sheep farming coward in the Wild West, Alfred, to comedic cowards like Bob Hope and Woody Allen, it is actually Seth’s filming of Charlese Theron that reminds me of Woody’s way with women. The lens finds a gentleness the way too brittle actress has never exuded before, her beauty shines through and her gentleness with Seth is one of the things I really enjoy about the movie.
There are other things as well: the Wild West comes alive and we haven’t seen that in way too many years, visually it is a pure homage to John Ford and the opening, (Death Valley?) is so wide open and raw, it reminds me of so many movies I’ve grown up on. The dialogue is excellent if you like Seth’s “Family Guy” style rat-a-tat low culture cynicism. Every thing else is the absolute pits.
Seth hates the Wild West in the 1880s, a place where staying alive is a miracle that doesn’t last long. An avowed coward, Seth backs out of a gunfight and loses his girl (Amanda Seyfried) to Neil Patrick Harris, a dandified heavy, one of two heavies (the other being the bandit Liam Neeson) and one of two girls (the other being Liam’s wife Charlese) vying for Seth’s attention. Add in best friend Giovanni Ribisi and his girlfriend, hooker Sarah Silverstein and that is your story though it takes two hours to tell it.
If you are in the market for matinee idol Seth go for it, but talk about suspending disbelief to get there. Seth can act about as well as he sang on his album last year and to compare him to Bob Hope is a terrible idea: there is no comparison; Bob Hope was one of the all time greats and this ain’t no “Pale Face” believe me.
But the jokes just keep on going and while I loath scatological humor, the rest of it is quite amusing. Sure, it goes on maybe 35 minutes too long and sure, no one will ever mistake it for a great western or a great comedy, still Charlese is wonderful and I didn’t walk out.
Grade: C+
