WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY (2022)

Inevitably, if you’re known for creating wacky Pop/Rock song & music video parodies, you’ll bring much the same spirit to any mock bio-pic, especially an auto-bio-pic.  Ergo this always silly, often funny, sometimes baffling/pushy look at the life, loves & labors of “Weird Al’ Yankovic, top Pop/Rock satirist of his generation.  (Okay, the only Pop/Rock satirist of his generation.*)  Written by Yankovic with director Eric Appel, who has his own history with genre parody, the hit-to-miss gag ratio well above expectations, starting with the casting of a game Daniel Radcliffe (buff but tiny!) as tall/scrawny Yankovic.  The film only growing seriously tiresome during a third act relationship (made up, of course) with Madonna.  It could have used that nasty Madonna/Warren Beatty vibe from TRUTH OR DARE/’91.)  A pity too, as this plays out during some hilarious Action Movie tropes from a 1980s Sylvester Stallone South American potboiler.  (Try and spot the Keanu Reeves lookalike in a quick Martial Arts fight.)  The main problem, and don’t think the makers aren’t aware of it, is more or less unsolvable: Yankovic specializes in take-downs lasting about three & half minutes; the film goes on for 108.  The jokes turn relentless, like some Ryan Reynolds sequel that can’t stop itself long after the street lights come on and you know you’re expected home for supper.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Was there a Golden Age of song satirists?  Maybe the early ‘60s with Allan Sherman’s My Son the Folk Singer and its sequels topping the comic LP charts while Mad Magazine, in its ‘60s heyday, regularly using B’way song cues (look for a little box in the frame saying ‘‘Sung to the tune of . . . ‘) in their main film or tv parody of the month.  

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  There's something just slightly off with Radcliffe’s lip-synch, his mouth ever so slightly unmatched to pre-recorded tracks captured in a totally different acoustic.  Was this done on purpose?  A bonus gag for obsessives?  (Quick story: Fred Astaire was watching a premiere of one of his films at Radio City Music Hall when a song came on and he dashed like a mad man up five flights of stairs, rushed into the projection booth and hurriedly told the operator that the picture was running two frames ahead of the soundtrack.)