Perhaps you might be able to persuade me on the Anchorman role. I’d still like to see him give it a go though. Unlike the rest of the man-child actors we’ve been talking about, this guy has chops and an few nods from the academy to show for it.
Oh, and as an aside, I’ve never found Sandler, Carey or Jack Black funny either. I think it’s the manic scene-chewing that bothers me. I’ve always been more partial to an act that has subtlety or at least a little depth. (That being said, Jim Carey was in Eternal Sunshine…so he gets a pass from me.)
It took me a moment to remember that I have seen Everything Must Go. Weird movie, may make sense to twelve-steppers.
Stranger than Fiction is pretty good.
Those movies have a more understated humor, which is more my speed. (And Everything Must Go isn’t even a comedy. It’s dry.) When Ferrell was on SNL, he was mostly OK, but he could actually gross me out, too. So I like him when he’s more subdued, I guess.
Will Ferrell is like Martin Short - a decent actor in the right project, but a dreadful writer who creates terrible, unfunny characters.
Eh. He manages to play a somewhat charismatic everyman. His very peak was the cowbell sketch and everything else is, as stated by other dopers, very hit and miss.
Anchorman, for instance, is mostly a case of several short segments of the movie being fairly funny and making the rounds on the net, but put together in the context of a movie make for a very weak narrative.
I agree with Musky Moon too: a talented, trained actor like Reilly can do everything Ferrell can, only better, and then everything else he can’t. But other than that, I have no problem with Ferrell and I wish he takes the final step of making a thoroughly enjoyable movie instead of some enjoyable bits in a mediocre one. Hopefully Anchorman 2 is that step.
I agree that most of Will Ferrell can be summed up as “enjoyable bits in mediocre movies.”
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who holds Stranger than Fiction highly. He was good in it but, I don’t think he really added anything to it either.
I had almost blocked Land of the Lost out of my mind completely. That was one of the absolute worst movies I have ever seen, and Ferrell was god awful in it. Everyone phoned it in for that movie. It was almost unbelievably bad like “am I really watching a hollywood produced movie right now?”
I think that’s the roles as much as the actors though. I don’t think many people want a nuanced and complex Ace Ventura or Happy Gilmore no matter who’s playing the role.
Sandler (Spanglish), Carey (Eternal Sunshine) and Farrell (Stranger than Fiction) all have at least one dramatic role that’s generally regarded as good work so I assume all are capable of nuanced performance. That’s just not what their comedy roles are about and I suspect you just don’t like that style of comedy regardless of who is on the screen.
I intentionally left Black out of the conversation because I couldn’t think of a movie he led in except for School of Rock which I never saw. And the cartoon panda but I don’t think that counts.
Jack Black was excellent in Bernie.
Obviously this is personal opinion, but I didn’t like Sandler in anything I’ve ever seen him in. This includes Spanglish (a movie where there were otherwise stellar performances by other actors.) and Punch Drunk Love. The closest thing I ever came to liking him in was Funny People and only for a few scenes. Sandler is at the age now where he could pull off the weary jaded Hollywood guy and I’d like to see him stretch a little.
Farrell on the otherhand has a certain vulnerability that I wish he would explore more. Comedy doesn’t always need to be zany antics. Bill Murray figured this out in a truly breathtaking way. Perhaps this comes with age.
I suspect that Jophiel is right that generally I don’t like the kind of comedy that needs zany antics and scene-chewing. Though, I do like Beer Fest and Napolian Dynamite, so what do I know?
Man, “Funny People” was a terrible movie. Not “Oh, I thought this would be funnier” bad but just dreadful to watch.
Yeah, that one was a real classic.
I sort of agree, except for the Wayne’s World movies. Everything else Carvey was in after SNL was pretty lame, but on SNL he was brilliant.
…in that he has both a first, and a last name.
I first saw Will Ferrell when a sketch from SNL was being shown on a local show here in Australia, and he just stood there in the background being gormless. He wasn’t the focus of the sketch, he was just making up the numbers in the crowd, but to me he looked uncomfortable and out of his depth just doing that, so in my mind I was thinking he was a one-season wonder that they realised they had made a mistake in hiring him.
Later I saw the trailer for Night At The Roxbury and put my head in my hands in despair, embarrassed for both Will and Chris Kattan.
Then I was listening to the commentary for one of the Austin Powers movies, where Will plays some idiot, and he’s reciting the script like he had never acted a day in his life, no comic timing at all, a borderline-offensive accent, all in service to a terribly lame joke, and yet Mike Myers was praising his performance as though he was some kind of genius at work, that only he could do a joke like that justice. It was weird.
So I had painted a picture in my own head of Will Ferrell much like the OP did, as a really unlikeable performer. I have mostly avoided him in everything since.
Until I saw Elf a couple of Christmases ago, in which he was quite fantastic. And then, based on that reassessment, I tried out The Other Guys and he was excellent in that too. So I am willing to give him more leeway now, even though I have subsequently watched the first Anchorman and thought it was awful, its praises mystifying to me.
I haven’t seen any of his other big movies, like Talladega Nights or Blades of Glory or whatever that basketball one was (nor his panned movies like Bewitched and Land of the Lost, yipe).
…in that they both were associated with great comedy troupes, without being particularly funny.
All of Martin Short’s characters are, collectively, as funny as cancer. They vary only in the type of cancer. Ed Grimley, for instance, is as funny as colorectal cancer, while Jiminy Glick is as funny as non-hodgkin lymphoma.
He is mind numbingly boring and forgetful. I just do not get his style or his humor.
I think that for some people Will Ferrell’s humor is far too subtle.
I guess everyone has their own tastes. People obviously like him as he keeps getting good roles. I think he is likable and has an innocent/stupid face - much more so than John C Reilly (even though there is a lot of similarities in their looks). I think he is talented and dependable. It isn’t like when I see a movie that has him in it I think “Oh I HAVE to see this - Will Ferrell is going to make this hilarious.” It is more like “Will Ferrell is in it - I’m pretty sure I won’t dislike this movie.” I don’t think there is anyone that can make punching a baby funnier than Will Ferrell. Would it be as funny if John C Reilly did it? I don’t think so. Jim Carey (who in many cases if funnier)? I don’t think so.
I think it depends on the character and tone of the movie. Of most of the actors named in this thread - I guess I feel the same way some of you do about Jack Black. I don’t think he is that great, but I guess others see something I don’t.
Will Farrell is funny, but I think it works best when you can see his face.
Of and I also loved that “help me Oprah” line and watched just the preview over and over - I couldn’t stop laughing.
This. I’m another hater, but this is the only Will Ferrell bit that I actually find funny. And he’s kind of the straight man in these, so maybe that’s why. I think it’s the insane overacting that turns me off.
I am not a fan of Will Ferrell. I loved The Producers and Old School but not because of him. I thought Blades of Glory was great though and that includes his performance. Other than that, I have not enjoyed anything he’s been in that I’ve seen (other than The Oblongs but I don’t think voice acting counts).
I can see why some people like him. What I can’t understand is that people actually like Ben Stiller and Jerry Seinfeld. It baffles me.
I agree. Jack Black did a great job and the movie was very well done. Very overlooked but received great critical acclaim. I highly recommend it.
As for Will Ferrell, I’m another one that finds him hit or miss. Some stuff I find pretty amusing but others fall completely flat.
I find Ferrell consistently unfunny. He is an analog to Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, a fool who thinks he is brilliant, and Sellers was hilarious in The Pink Panther movies. The difference to me seems to be that Sellers had an antic quality that Ferrell lacks in his roles. It’s hard to put it into words, but it’s why I busted a gut at Sellers’ Clouseau, but rarely even smiled at Farrell’s schtick. Ferrell seems wooden compared to Sellers.