Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

For those expecting an honest biopic of 'Weird Al' Yankovic, get serious. This 2022 comedy was a pretty silly, sporadically hilarious reinvention of his life and career reimagined by the subject himself. He has a minor role as a record executive here (one of the Scotti brothers), while Daniel Radcliffe liberates himself credibly as 'Weird Al' after showing off surprising comic chops in "The Lost City" earlier this year. Along with moments of gratuitous, comic book violence, there's a staggering number of celebrity cameos stuffed into this free-wheeling parody of the master parodist, though Evan Rachel Wood has significant screen time playing a believably narcissistic Madonna. Funny stuff but for a selective audience.

I came into Weird: The Al Yankovic Story expecting an accurate biopic about the life of the parody king, but that's definitely not what I got. While tere are moments that loosely follow the real Al's career, the majority of the film takes liberties for comedic effect.

It's a parody of biopics, much like Al's songs parody pop music. However, I found the humor to be a bit forced. The movie has its moments, especially with Radcliffe's over-the-top performance, but much of it feels random. Some jokes land well, others fal flat, and the story veers too far into chaos for my taste. An okay watch, but not as funny as I hoped. It has a lot of Good actors tho.

"What in gods name are you doing? Those aren't the right words!

-i know, i made em better.

By changing the lyrics of a well-known song.

No, boy, what you are doing is confusing and Evil. Blasphemy."

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.

There is weird and then there is too weird, there is silly and there is dumb. This move had a bit too much dumb for me and went beyond dumb too many times. It's entertainment but I've just barely got past halfway and the feeling of turning it off started to creep in. I've gotten 3/4 the way through and can just shut if off and not finish it. The first 30 minutes or so were pretty good, I was having no problem watching it and it was enjoyable for the most part and soon after it rapidly began to degrade. It is Weird Al after all, so I shouldn't have expected it to be any less than what was delivered here, but it would have been fine as a more genuine story of his life than to make it so absurd, it went from a mildly believable telling of his story to just outrageous goofball nonsense. If the story was that A. L. F. Was Weird Al and Punky Brewster's love-child it wouldn't have been any less strange than the story that was told here and might have been just as entertaining. There were a few laughs here and there, but it went from hope to nope for me rather fast. I just don't know if I can bring myself to finish the last bit of it, I just don't really care how they decide to finish this story, it really doesn't matter, it's just so dumb and unbelievable they could have written anything and it doesn't matter to me.

No two movies have surprised me more this year than "Everything Everywhere" and now: "Weird"! It's absolutely bonkers, a movie that only Weird Al could have made. This is the parody to end all parodies; it spoofs biopics/music industry and incredibly turns everything upside down by the end, operating by its own rules. It's insanely funny and one of the biggest comedy surprises of the year, and has fantastic use of setups and payoffs with its jokes! My only problem is in the 2nd half it really starts to feel like a sequence of funny or die sketches rather than a movie. But that's okay... it's supposed to be absolutely nuts! Daniel Radcliffe is awesome in role, and I loved all the cameos hidden throughout! Highly recommend checking this out if you can... it's impossible to find though unless you have a Roku... or as Weird Al himself suggested.. pirate it. So good luck trying to watch it, but if you do, you're in for a treat!