We all know the clichés and tropes of the musical biopic; how they add various drama to the subject's backstory to make the journey more interesting and the celebrity himself more admirable and pitiable. Now comes the musical biopic about "Weird Al" Yankovic, which outright actively lies about pretty much everything -- as a joke. And really, could we possibly have asked for a more "Weird Al" thing to do?
For those of you who don't know (which I dearly hope is exactly 0 of you), "Weird Al" Yankovic is the parody artist who rose to prominence in the 1980s with his spoofs of Queen and Michael Jackson and, being that parody is a sort of timeless art, would eventually come to outlast many of the artists he lampooned throughout his career. Because of this, each generation's goofy teenagers have discovered him in their own distinct way. For the true OGs, it was listening to "Eat It" and "Fat" during the MAD Magazine days; for others, it was watching "Smells Like Nirvana" on TV; for me, it was finding "Amish Paradise" and "White & Nerdy" on YouTube circa 2005. There are many eras of Weird Al fans, but we all join hands in loving every era of stupid nonsense he's given us. He is, in summation, essentially synonymous with the very word "parody".
It figures, then, that Weird: The Al Yankovic story would jokingly do for Weird Al what Bohemian Rhapsody did in earnest for Queen. Here he's played by Daniel Radcliffe (who Jay Bauman described as being "completely wrong for the role which is why he's perfect for the role") and it's no doubt part of the joke that he very clearly doesn't supply his own singing voice (á la Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury).
His life is treated with all the over-the-top drama and "gravity" you'd expect from a biopic -- the big moment where he first receives his accordion as though it were Andúril itself, the big epiphany/breakthrough he shares with his astonished roommates when "My Sharona" plays on the radio whilst he's handling some bologna, the exaggerated claims of his subsequent stardom, not to mention the hilariously evil father character, his totally made up liaison with Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood), and finally all the drugs. It's complete BS, all of it. And that's why it works. (Wait till you see how Michael Jackson comes into play in this version of events.)
The film treats us to many other prominent faces from the worlds of music and comedy, both in terms of which actors appear (from Jack Black and Rainn Wilson to Lin-Manuel Miranda and Emo Phillips) and which celebrities they portray: including but not limited to Doctor Demento, Wolfman Jack, Alice Cooper, Tiny Tim, John Deacon of Queen, Divine, Andy Warhol, and Salvador Dalí. Once again, there are varying degrees of truth as to whether any of these people actually played a part in Yankovic's life.
Overall, this flick was a blast. I had a few problems with the sometimes-bland filmmaking -- which is your average "shot, reverse shot" deal with some purposeful and zany exceptions -- and the odd joke that just didn't stick the landing too well. The funniest thing in the movie is arguably the end credits sequence.
The film was produced by Funny or Die, and for all the times I've roasted movies in the "nostalgia age" for being so absurd and creatively inept that they seem like rejected Funny or Die skits (Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Detective Pikachu, Cruella, etc.), this one actually, literally is adapted from a Funny or Die skit. And as it turns out, when a movie is adapted from a comedy skit (and doesn't just unintentionally feel like one), fun is had by all, even if the skit in question was extended just a tad too far. Catch this one on Roku if you want to see just how stupid it dares to be -- and if you're wondering how to catch it if you don't live in America, allow me to quote a recent tweet from Yankovic himself:
"Roku's working on it. In the meantime, there's VPN (Very Probably No) way to watch it legally. I'm sure you have a TORRENT of other questions, but I have to move along, sorry." We truly do not deserve this man.
