Maybe nothing happened to him. Maybe he is just generally a non-funny person who got lucky a few times, and lately he has simply returned to his original, non-funny-ness.
Watched the Eurovision movie. A pleasant surprise. It is clearly a Ferrell movie, but tbecause there are so many musical numbers in between his presence is not overbearing. The gross humor works because Eurovision itself is rather campy.
I believe they managed to capture the spirit of real Eurovision quite well: the kind of songs and the theatrical performance. The voting process is also portrayed quite faithfully, it looks like they got permission to use the actual software/graphics. It could easily fool you into thinking this was real footage of an actual Eurovision festival.
The movie doesn’t seem to aim at poking fun of its subjects (Icelend and Eurovision), which makes it a warm experience.
The movie’s biggest weakness, by far, is Will Ferrell. (It has other problems too - the choices of shots and framing were often genuinely inexplicable - but it’s mostly fun.) It would be substantially improved if Lars was played by any number of actors who aren’t Will Ferrell.
Ferrell is polarizing, and I am not only on the “not funny” side, but I honestly find the other side mystifying; I not only don’t think Ferrell is funny, I cannot comprehend why anyone would. It’s not just that he’s always the same guy; it’s that that one guy is astoundingly unfunny. Ferrell always plays Big Loud Oblivious Oaf. Sometimes it’s a sweet Big Loud Oblivious Oaf, as in Eurovision Song Contest; sometimes it’s an asshole version, as in Anchorman. When he dials it down at all it becomes quickly apparent why he does it; he brings nothing else to the table.
Thudlow Boink refers to this as the “annoying=funny” comedy trend and that’s true. Ferrell, however, is the worst species in that genus, the Look At Me Drama Nerd. There is one in every drama club; they’re usually a taller guy, like Farrell, who act out and desperately try to bring all the attention onto themselves by being loud and annoying and superficially friendly. I thought that guy was funny when I was 14. By 16 I was tired of him.
Will Ferrell, somehow, slipped through and became that guy for the whole English-speaking world, and I’ll be damned if I can see why.
And so today this appeared:
The Eurovision movie is ranked #9, and discussed pretty favorably.
Cite that Rob Schneider made good movies?
I see Talladega Nights at #5 and believe it to be way to low (though I think Talladega Nights, Anchorman, or Elf could have an argument as #1).
I was wondering about that too.
I read somewhere that Will Ferrell’s wife is Swedish and that’s where he discovered Eurovision. It does seem like you need to be somewhat familiar with the show to appreciate all of the humor. Still surprisingly funny.
I’ve tried for a long time to figure out why he annoys me so, and I think it’s this: All his characters, and his general manner, are in isolation. It doesn’t feel like he’s interacting with the other characters, or the audience. I feel like I’m watching a brilliantly rehearsed performance by a blind and deaf man, who has no idea if anything else in the universe exists, other than himself.
I’m no fan of Will Farrell, but I watched this with some Discord friends who have been doing Eurovision stuff for a while now, streaming the 2019 edition, and held our own Eurovision 2020 voting.
It seemed like everyone enjoyed the movie, especially the music and cameos by Eurovision performers. It definitely felt like how Eurovision typically is.
I would say that Farrell was the weakest part of the film though, but not bad or ruining the movie.
I don’t know if that applies for his biggest hits (Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Elf, etc). He definitely is interacting with the other characters and that provides a lot of the humor as he is so far off from normal human understanding that the rest of the characters are like, WTF? (though in Anchorman the rest of the characters were as batshit as he was - well Steve Carrell’s character may have been more looney).
Brick killed a guy with a trident.
Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk about that. He should probably have found himself a safehouse or a relative close by. Lay low for a while, because he was probably wanted for murder.
I hate Will Farrell. Never found him funny…
Except for “Stranger Than Fiction”. Damn, that’s a good movie, and he plays it well.
But I hate everything else.
Watched the Eurovision movie last night and I agree with the majority - it’s a better film than expected but the weak point is Ferrell himself. Being a Eurovisionphile, I did recognise a disturbing number of the Eurovision people (including the lovingly snarky Graham Norton), even if I couldn’t remember all their names. Also, I’m chalking this up as another thing I’ve loved Dan Stevens in.
However, while Ferrell’s film are much of a muchness now, his absence in Lego Movie 2 was one of the main reasons it sucked. Sometimes he hits a sweet spot.
Amusingly in my friend group chat, everyone is imploring me to see the Eurovision movie because they loved it so damned much. Like literally, one of the people has already seen it 4 times.
I’ll get to it because I do like Will Ferrell, but I thought it was an interesting anecdote.
He’s an absolute hoot. And Rachel McAdams is a surprisingly good straight man against Will Ferrell’s goofiness. I had never really thought of her as being funny or having any sort of comedic chops, but she does very well here.
Rachel McAdams does play in several comedies to good effect: one of rher first movies was The Hot Chick (with Rob Schneider) and more reecently TData Night, nboth of which I enjoyed.
I feel that this is the most accurate take on Will Ferrell. While I don’t like most of his movies, it is because when he is the central character, his gags and mannerisms get very old, very fast. But I DO like him in roles where due to the script or the medium, they get turned down, or he is able to banter with other characters, rather than monologue and mug.
Thus my favorite Will Farrell movie is, and probably always will be Megamind.
The villain was pretty despicable, it just wasn’t the one you thought it was.