A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)
Directed by Seth MacFarlane
As a cowardly farmer begins to fall for the mysterious new woman in town, he must put his new-found courage to the test when her husband, a notorious gun-slinger, announces his arrival.
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What critics say influenced A Million Ways to Die in the West
The comedic western is a notoriously difficult nut to crack, with only a handful of directors ever pulling it off successfully (Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” which gets explicitly referenced here, are the notable exceptions), and MacFarlane seems both incredibly eager to join those rarified ranks and yet skittish about really maximizing the potential for the movie’s setting and concept.
Moving forward from that success, A Million Ways to Die in the West, a casual, sometimes vapid spoof on traditional and spaghetti westerns is not just reminiscent of Blazing Saddles, but seems to be a thematic copy, his attempt at flattering imitation.
And his new film is such an unapologetic homage to 1974's Blazing Saddles that Mel Brooks probably deserves to get a cut of the box-office receipts.
Mel Brooks' 1970s sagebrush spoof Blazing Saddles - clearly an inspiration for MacFarlane - shared a similarly sophomoric, scatalogical sensibility.
MacFarlane's obvious touchstone here is another Western comedy that was both crass and smartly provocative, Mel Brooks' 1974 Blazing Saddles.
Like every comic Western, A Million Ways To Die will inevitably be compared to Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles: in fact it's closer to the wiseguy tradition of Woody Allen and Bob Hope.
I still don't think that movie's any good, but it is Young Frankenstein compared to A Million Ways to Die in the West.
The filmmaker clearly hopes that his comic Western will be this generation's companion piece to Mel Brooks' 1974 classic Blazing Saddles, a picture so revered that it rests in the number 6 slot on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 funniest American movies of all time (the highest ranked of three Brooks flicks, with The Producers at number 11 and Young Frankenstein at number 13).
The filmmaker clearly hopes that his comic Western will be this generation's companion piece to Mel Brooks' 1974 classic Blazing Saddles, a picture so revered that it rests in the number 6 slot on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 funniest American movies of all time (the highest ranked of three Brooks flicks, with The Producers at number 11 and Young Frankenstein at number 13).
*** With a title inspired by the lurid pulp grandiosity of Spaghetti Westerns (“Shoot the Living and Pray for the Dead” and “Django’s Cut-Price Corpses” are just two examples), a big-sky score by Joel McNeely that channels the Aaron Copland-esque themes of the Hollywood mainstream and a premise more or less lifted from Bob Hope’s “The Paleface,” writer-director-vilified-Oscar-host Seth MacFarlane’s follow-up to his huge hit “Ted” was judged a box-office disappointment when it was released theatrically in May, earning “just” $42 million compared to the $218 million snatched by the movie about the vulgar talking Teddy bear.
Albert may be spineless, but that is nothing new; it is more than sixty years since Bob Hope put a coward among the cowboys, in “The Paleface.”
The problem seems to be that he and co-writers Wellesley Wild and Alec Sulkin could not decide whether to do an over-the-top parody such as “Blazing Saddles” or a fish-out-of-water spoof such as Bob Hope’s “The Paleface.”
Now in a sense, all comic Westerns do this, whether we're talking about Bob Hope in "The Paleface" (1948) or Mel Brooks ' "Blazing Saddles."
The truth is he’s made the new Shakiest Gun in the West — Don Knotts’ 1968 rehash of Bob Hope’s The Paleface (1948) — except MacFarlane’s picture isn’t even up to the none-too-exacting standards of the Don Knotts movie.
But Hope had a knack for comic timing in movies like “The Paleface” — sometimes that’s all he had — and Brooks pushed cultural as well as scatological boundaries in 1974’s “Blazing Saddles.”
Director
Robert Zemeckis
Critics compare A Million Ways to Die in the West to 2 of Zemeckis’s films.
MacFarlane has a bevy of cameoing stars, their very presence aimed to elicit laughs, but again, what's a "Back to the Future" nod with Christopher Lloyd got to do with anything?
Most of the time, the humor works, such as a joke about how big Seyfried's eyes are or a nod to the "Back to the Future" films.
The many unbilled cameos, some of which are witless references to other, better movies (e.g., “Back to the Future” and “Django Unchained”), would work better if the good-natured performers had been given any decent material to work with, though it’s hard to imagine that even Shakespeare could have come up with anything that might save Gilbert Gottfried’s impersonation of Abe Lincoln.
But to be fair, not all the jokes are quite that crude; the occasional slipped-in movie reference – Back To The Future , Django Unchained – hits the spot and the pace rarely lets up.
There’s an excruciating Peter Griffin moment late in Million Ways where Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown shows up for absolutely no reason other than to high five the audience for having seen Back to the Future (“Bro, remember Pepsi??”).
Christopher Lloyd reprises his role as Doc Brown from Back to the Future Part III in a story set three years before Zemeckis’ comedy western, explaining away his time machine tinkering with an excuse from another instalment, “just a little weather experiment”.
An unflinching spoof that targets classic movie westerns of yore as well as life in the American West, circa 1882, "A Million Ways to Die in the West" is a spirited concoction that is one part "Blazing Saddles" and another part "Back to the Future Part III" as processed through the self-deprecating mind of Seth MacFarlane.
To make up, A Million Ways continually extrapolates on a small set of jokes: the use of cocaine as an ingredient in medicine (two instances); extended, Family Guy-style non-parodies (Back To The Future Part III, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, and Django Unchained ); Old West people getting stoned (two instances, plus a drug-trip sequence); the fact that nobody smiles in early photos (four instances); a shooting gallery with “runaway slave” targets (enough for one shot, but used for an entire scene and a mid-credits stinger); the idea of a “devoutly Christian” prostitute who only practices abstinence with her fiancé (more than 10 instances); the social significance of mustaches in 19th-century culture (more than 10 instances, plus a musical number).
The comedic western is a notoriously difficult nut to crack, with only a handful of directors ever pulling it off successfully (Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” which gets explicitly referenced here, are the notable exceptions), and MacFarlane seems both incredibly eager to join those rarified ranks and yet skittish about really maximizing the potential for the movie’s setting and concept.
The many unbilled cameos, some of which are witless references to other, better movies (e.g., “Back to the Future” and “Django Unchained”), would work better if the good-natured performers had been given any decent material to work with, though it’s hard to imagine that even Shakespeare could have come up with anything that might save Gilbert Gottfried’s impersonation of Abe Lincoln.
But to be fair, not all the jokes are quite that crude; the occasional slipped-in movie reference – Back To The Future , Django Unchained – hits the spot and the pace rarely lets up.
The one scene to feature a black actor revolves around the same game, but is an end-credits stinger featuring Jamie Foxx reprising his role from Django Unchained and deciding to take care of the game proprietor for his transgression.
As a writer (with Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild), MacFarlane concocts a flimsy burlesque story that draws on every offbeat oater from “Destry Rides Again” to “Cat Ballou” and “Django Unchained.”
When you’ve elected to cut your profits by pushing out the “PG-13” and below crowd to go for “Django Unchained” glory, I expected much more shock and awe.
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After lending the latter to his big-screen comedy “Ted,” MacFarlane finally steps in front of the camera for “A Million Ways to Die in the West.”
With no one there to edit his extreme tendencies, to tell him casting himself in the lead might be a mistake, to warn him that breezy comedies shouldn’t be nearly two hours long, Seth MacFarlane ’s carte blanche that came with the box office success of " Ted " proves to be his undoing.
He was emboldened, though, by 2012’s “Ted,” a rude, hilarious tale of a boy and his talking teddy bear that MacFarlane wrote and directed, and with his 2013 gig as Oscar host, he came out of the closet as a wannabe star.
However, Seth MacFarlane's hit-and-miss spoof of Westerns has far more "misses" than "hits" and the actor-director-writer ( Ted ) doesn't seem to realize that less is sometimes more when it comes to comedy.
MacFarlane, on the other hand -- in "A Million Ways to Die in the West," and before that in 2012's well-received " Ted ," his directing debut -- writes a solid story, one with at least a modicum of emotional weight, and then dresses it up with punch lines and sight gags.
Even if it’s not as warm or as constantly funny as MacFarlane’s feature directing debut, “Ted,” it’s a welcome lightweight among a summer season of graceless heavyweights.
As a frontier sheep rancher named Albert, MacFarlane starts the movie with a nod to Don Knotts in “The Shakiest Gun in the West.”
John Ford shot there 9 separate times, starting with 1939's Stagecoach.
It’s clear what he’s aiming for: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance riding on Blazing Saddles.
Like the authentic setting, Theron's seriousness grounds "Million Ways to Die," allowing us to give a pass to MacFarlane when he awkwardly emulates Kid Shelleen's drunken horse rider from "Cat Ballou" (Lee Marvin did it better), and tries to achieve Brooksian racial commentary with dubious setups.
As a writer (with Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild), MacFarlane concocts a flimsy burlesque story that draws on every offbeat oater from “Destry Rides Again” to “Cat Ballou” and “Django Unchained.”
In the venerable tradition of Cat Ballou and Blazing Saddles, Seth MacFarlane’s comedy western boasts gags galore – some a lot cruder than others.
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MacFarlane’s more like a time traveler — Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness or Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future Part III, which is actually referenced here — cracking wise about all the stupidity that surrounds him.
Basically the movie is structured into a series of "High Noon" face-offs featuring MacFarlane trying to talk his way out of them.
Maybe he’s trying to recapture the spirit of Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles,” but that movie was made in 1974, when everyone watching it had grown up with “Shane” and “True Grit” and “High Noon.”
From John Ford's patriotic visions to the allegorical dimensions of the Cold War-era "High Noon" and the Vietnam analogies of Clint Eastwood's best efforts, the Western has always offered meaty fodder for wresting with relevant attitudes.
In fact, his "Million Ways to Die in the West" plot could fuel any number of classic Westerns: A mild-mannered, recently jilted resident of the Western frontier (played by MacFarlane) gets caught up in a moment of poor judgment and commits to a "High Noon"-style showdown with his ex's dandy of a new beau (a mustachioed Neil Patrick Harris , characteristically hilarious).
A Million Ways to Die in the West establishes its classy and sophisticated comic strategy with an opening High Noon face-off between Albert and a disgruntled, trigger-happy cowpoke.