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List Price: $26.98 | | Label: City Lights
Salesrank: 15758
Released: January 15, 2008 |
| Our Price: $12.19 |
| Used Price: $5.20 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
No one will mistake Jeff Reigert (Paul Rudd) for Moses or even Charlton Heston, but they all have something in common. Like Moses and Heston, Jeff's job is to introduce the world to the Ten Commandments. But, in David Wain's loopy comedy The Ten, he is not exactly the picture of virtue...In fact, surrounded as he is by gigantic replicas of the famous stone tablets, the genial host to this special presentation is so busy juggling wife Gretchen (Famke Janssen) and girlfriend (Jessica Alba) that he can barely get through a single commandment without breaking one himself. But that venality is part of the charm of this amiable, outrageous and frequently hilarious biblical parody. Wain and Marino use the commandments as an excuse to indulge in ridiculous, often surreal and sometimes tasteless humor... it lives up to the one unbendable commandment of comedy: It's funny. - Pam Grady, San Francisco Chronicle
Description of The Ten:
It's inevitable that a director with a sketch-comedy background, like The State's David Wain, would make a movie comprised of sketches. Written with his Wet Hot American Summer collaborator Ken Marino, The Ten brings the Big Man's commandments to life via 10 mini-movies or "stories," as host Paul Rudd calls them. (Rudd is joined by Famke Janssen, as his wife, and Jessica Alba, as his girlfriend.) The narratives rarely play out in a predictable manner, but laughs are in surprisingly short supply (possibly because each runs a few beats longer than necessary). Still, it's fun to see so many actors cast against type. In "Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord Thy God in Vain," Gretchen Mol's 35-year-old virgin falls for Justin Theroux's Mexican carpenter, while in "Thou Shalt Not Steal," Winona Ryder's newlywed falls for a ventriloquist's dummy--and runs off with the little wooden man. Unlike Krysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue, the acclaimed dramatic series inspired by the same source material, Wain and Marino have no trenchant observations to offer about modern morality. Their aim is to amuse. If that means references to prison rape ("Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife" with Marino and The Daily Show's Rob Corddry) and loose bowels (Aaron Augenblick's "Lying Rhino," the only animated vignette), so be it. As a reinvention of retro sketch fests, like Kentucky Fried Movie, The Ten falls short, but it's worth a look for the cast, which includes Liev Schreiber, Adam Brody, and Oliver Platt. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
The Ten Reviews:
Surprisingly Bad! 
2008-09-21 - I must agree with another poster... I rarely bother to post, but this one was so disappointing that I feel obliged to give fair warning to others.
I originally picked this up for a few dollars somewhere because I couldn't BELIEVE that I hadn't even HEARD of this movie with all of these great actors and actresses in it! It ought to be HILARIOUS! Then I watched it and found out WHY.
I'm not saying that it doesn't have a single funny moment in it. Almost any comedy, no matter bad, is likely to have at least one or two amusing scenes. But it was so bad that it wasn't even worth the low price I paid for it. I was extremely disappointed, and I am very forgiving of comedies. I enjoy all kinds of humor, and will put up with a lot to get a few nuggets of laughter, but this just had FAR too few to offer. I even gave it to my brother to see if it was really so bad or if it was just my imagination, and he couldn't even get half way through it.
In short, to those who actually liked it - Good for you! I'd love to be able to eat a piece of stale bread starting to mold and have it taste like a fresh doughnut. But for everyone else - beware this bread... I peronally don't think it is even worth taking a single bite of.
He who watches breaks all ten
2008-09-13 - The irreverent handling of The Commandments by this writer and cast is simply blasphemy. If you believe in the Lord who gave us these laws, I strongly warn you to pass over this glorification of sin. Also, it was not humorous, romantic, inspiring, etc.; it fails on all levels.
Waste of a talented cast 
2008-09-01 - I rented this movie mainly because of the talented cast, including Winona Ryer, Paul Rudd, Liev Schriber, Janeane Garofalo, Ron Silver, Famke Jansen, Gretchen Mol, Jessica Alba, and Oliver Platt. What were these actors thinking being in this mediocre "comedy"? They deserve a better movie.
The film seems to be impressed with how "wacky" it is. Ha, ha. Instead, it's just silly and stupid. We have two black 20 year olds born to a white couple who wonder about their paternity. The mother thinks it's Arnold Schwarzenegger and hires an actor (Oliver Platt) to pretend to be him. Then the mother realizes the boys' father is really Arsenio Hall. So the actor, who can't do an Arsenio impression, does Eddie Murphy. A woman (Winona Ryder) gets married after her other fiance falls out of a plane and get surgically stuck in the ground. Then she falls for a ventriloquist's dummie and has sex with it and leaves her husband for it. Another sketch is about a woman (Gretchen Mol) whose husband likes to hang out around the house with his other male friends naked rather than go to church. Another tale is a raunchy, offensive cartoon about a rhino who likes to gossip and whose lies lead to grisly deaths by sex.
Doesn't really make any sense, does it? What does any of this have to do with the Ten Commandments? Nothing, really. It's just unfunny nonsense instead of sharp, humorous satire. If you want to see a funny, controversial film that deals with the Bible, check out Kevin Smith's Dogma instead.
Smarmy and painfully unfunny
2008-07-06 - I normally am not moved to type out a review of a movie, but after having watched the first 15 or so minutes of this P.O.S., I felt compelled to render an opinion. I don't think I've seen a movie that went to such lengths to hit its audience over the head with how witty it was, when in fact it really wasn't at all humorous or clever. Whoever was responsible for how this thing turned out (the writers? the director?) should think twice about pursuing a career in film-making.
This is the funniest movie I've ever seen. 
2008-05-14 - If you don't think the Ten Commandments could be funny, turn away now. If you think they could, pull up a chair. If you like the hilarious comedy of writer-director David Wain (like the tragically short-lived Stella on Comedy Central), you will most likely laugh till you cry. With an amazingly funny cast that includes the lusciously brilliant Paul Rudd, Winona Ryder, Adam Brody, Ken Marino, Liev Schreiber, Gretchen Mol, Justin Theroux, Oliver Platt, Kerri Kenney- Silver, Jason Sudekis, et cetera... (Where was I?) The Ten provides for somewhat obvious, though completely genius situations, and is well-made at the very least. I have never laughed aloud so many times in one sitting, let alone at one movie. This should be set right up there with other recent comedies like Smiley Face, Knocked Up, and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
