The teaser trailer released earlier this year might have given us the impression that Weird might be a standard musical biopic. The official trailer later, however, started to hint that things were not quite as they seemed. Did Weird Al have a romantic relationship with Madonna? Was he battling with drug abuse and alcoholism, as musical biopics demand? For the real Weird Al, the questions very much delighted him, as he revealed on Twitter. Yankovic has since clarified that he met Madonna for, "like, forty-five seconds" backstage at an awards event in 1985. For me, though, I don't think the joke really sunk in until the very end of the trailer, in which Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Yankovic, shoves his cigarette into a music executive's hand. While it would be much more entertaining to watch the film not knowing that it is meant to be a parody of musical biopics (it makes sense that it does, of course, since Yankovic has made a career of parodying other songs), by now everyone knows this is not a serious film, though it plays as one. Weird is a spoof of those hackneyed Oscar-bait musical biopics (looking at you, Elvis) that we're all tired of.
Inspired by the viral success of Eric Appel's fake trailer for a Weird Al biopic nine years ago at Funny of Die, this film starts with a musical score sounding like it's right out of movies of a simpler time (think Forrest Gump, Beethoven, and The American President). The movie shows us Al as a young boy living a simple suburban life. But as a teenager, he just wants to play the accordion (what a rebel), an instrument his father angrily dismisses as the "Devil's Squeeze Box." One of the film's funniest lines is when the police return young Al to his parents and tell them, "I'm afraid we found your son at an accordion party." Despite his parents (played by Julianne Nicholson and Toby Huss) attempting to steer him away from his dreams of writing songs ("in an extremely specific genre of music," he tells them) and more towards a respectable career path, like his father's job at a factory in which nobody has any idea what is made, Al remains determined to write new words to songs that have already been written.
All the tropes are deliberately there in this biopic, including the one in which the musical protagonist suddenly wows the unexpecting crowd by pelting out a tune out of nowhere. It starts by Al hearing "My Shorona" on the radio while making sandwiches and suddenly coming up with "My Bologna," then later again at a pool party hosted by his father figure, Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson) in a cameo-a-minute scene in which Al is challenged to make a lampoon of "Another One Bites the Dust." The result: "Another One Rides the Bus." At this point, it should be pointed out that there are "nuggets of truth," as Weird Al has called them in recent interviews, sprinkled throughout the film. "Another One Rides the Bus" is (obviously) an actual parody from 1981, which became an underground hit and was featured on his first album two years later. He also did, in fact, record "My Bologna" in a public restroom.
From there, Weird Al faces a meteoric rise. But again, in this fictitious alternate universe, things are upside down. No finer example of this (other than dating Madonna, wonderfully played by Evan Rachel Wood as a villainess desperate for the "Yankovic Bump" that her records would receive if he would just parody one of her songs–oh, and all the parts with Pablo Escobar) is when Al releases "Eat It." Look, Weird Al Yankovic has released a lot of great songs that are actually originals and not parodies, and it's a pity that the public isn't as well-versed these songs, like the epic and absurd "Albuquerque" or the intense "Hardware Store" or the cathartic "Stop Forwarding That Crap to Me" (a song that speaks for us all). But everyone knows that "Eat It," with its obvious similarity to "Beat It," is not an original. Here, in this topsy-turvey world, it's the other way around. In Weird, "Eat It" comes first, and "Beat It" (the song by "that kid from the Jackson 5?") comes second, infuriating Al Yankovic, who at this point wants to be taken more seriously.
For fans of Weird Al, especially the hardcore ones who likely know the originals mentioned above, Weird is a must. Those who have listened to his songs over the years as he turned songs like "Jeopardy" into "I Lost on Jeopardy" and "Lola" into "Yoda" will most likely enjoy it as well. Even those who have absolutely no idea who Weird Al Yankovic is will probably at least enjoy it a little. I did. However, there are problems with it, mainly with how late it is. The inevitable comparison of the film is to Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the 2007 comedy starring John C. Reilly lampooning films like Ray and Walk the Line. "The wrong kid died," the line from Dewey's dismissive and cruel father, was far funnier than any of the father-son dynamics we see here. And the zenith of Weird's absurdity, as it shifts into a parody of action films of the 1980s, is a low point. Ultimately, especially as it inches its way through its third act, it simply becomes more and more smirkable and chuckable than downright hysterical.
Radcliffe, though, delivers one of his best performances, as does Wood. They definitely have comedic chemistry. They both can sing in real life, as well, so it's unfortunate that we don't get to hear them belt out a few tunes here. And Weird Al's new song for the movie (titled "Now You Know") is one of his best. I just wish I enjoyed the rest of the movie as much as I did this new song.
The Best Weird Al Songs:
49. I Think I'm a Clone Now
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