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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 4959
Released: June 3, 2008 |
| Our Price: $8.17 |
| Used Price: $2.49 |
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MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
This just in...The Onion invades DVD! Based on the wildly popular newspaper hailed by The New Yorker as â??the funniest publication in the United States,â? The Onion Movie brings you uncensored, uninhibited, UNRATED news and views from around the world. In a stunning development, when Onion News anchorman Norm Archer (Len Cariou) is asked to compromise his journalistic integrity to please a new corporate sponsor, he doesnâ??t just get mad, he gets...angry. Taking aim at pop stars, prisoners, peace talks and, of course, high-testosterone action films, The Onion Movie delivers hard-hitting headlinesâ?"and side-splitting laughs!
Description of The Onion Movie:
Shelved since 2003 then released straight to DVD, the feature-length Onion Movie is based on the satirical nationwide newspaper The Onion, which works better in print than on celluloid. That said, hardcore Onion fans will appreciate this effort to enliven text with filmed comedic sketches that strongly resemble Saturday Night Live news and National Lampoon. Directors Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire translate what would normally read as sarcastic headlines into slapstick skits starring three news reporters, Norm Archer (Len Cariou), Larissa Laskin (Dana Dobbs), and Scott Klace (Kip Kendall), reporting on idiotic events either live or in the studio. The newsreel opens, for example, with a report from Archer on the dangers of "neck belts" in automobiles, that have lately been decapitating drivers. Spoofs on everyone and everything, from slutty teen stars, racial stereotyping, the handicapped, to military recruitment officials turned peaceful by marijuana, add plenty of characteristically perverse and iffy Onion humor to this odd film. The Onion Movie relies loosely on a plot in which Norm Archer, devoted anchorman, protests a toy penguin interrupting his screen time in the name of advertising an upcoming film, Cockpuncher, that the network’s corporate sponsor, Global Tetrahedron, has funded. This facetious action film featuring Steven Seagal, looks a little too life-like after Norm takes measures to fight the power. At an hour and a half, news skits interrupted by fake commercials and Archer’s fits of rage feel played out, though skit-to-skit, the news broadcasts are quite hilarious, making the film an overall winner if you’re in the mood for mockery. --Trinie Dalton
The Onion Movie Reviews:
Disappointed 
2009-12-12 - Being familiar with the Onion I expected better. The movie did try to create connections between its pieces but I would have liked to have seen something more like a continuous news product rather than the cutaways between Norm and the management. Some parts WERE hilarious, such as the Jumping Johnny bits and the depiction of the terrorists but as a whole it just didn't come off that well.
The Onion Movie
2009-12-09 - A lot of people are familiar with The Onion News. The Onion News is a news service that parodies modern news right down to the Horoscopes. Spoofing modern news with spoof news filled with humor and scatological references, The Onion News has been offering a scathing satire on the modern news experience for years. In 2003, they opted to make a movie filled with the same satire of the modern world you'd find in the newspapers. Apparently, though, due to poor test screenings the movie was shelved and finally released on DVD in 2008 rather than theatrically. So how does it stack up?
The Onion Movie is mainly a group of skits, working as news stories, commercials, movie spots, etc. Behind the skits there's a working TV news report: The Onion News "The World's Greatest News Source". The Onion News has just been bought out by a global conglomerate who requires the news to plug their movies on the air. News anchor, Norm Archer, thinks this compromises the integrity of the news, and this leads to an interesting, and funny, confrontation at the end of the movie.
The Onion Movie is a really funny movie with a few unfortunate down spots. It does a fairly good job of mixing the politically incorrect (Little Known Racial Stereotypes, Terrorist Training Video, etc.), with satire of celebrities (Melissa Cherry, a Britney Spears knock off who sings songs like: "Take Me From Behind," and lyrics like, "So, let me give you some affection - just below your waist" which are apparently just about friendship because she's a virgin), and satire of society (News report: "The internet went down for three hours this morning, plunging the nation into productivity. The outage, which caused major work startages from New York to California, prevented an estimated 120 million American employees from messing around on the web at work"). Also, there are some funny cameos including a spoof commercial hosted by Michael Bolton for a children's charity organization, but the best is Steven Segal as the Cockpuncher.
While those skits work very well, and the majority of the rest do, some skits fall flat on their face. Skits like the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast spoof and the majority of a skit dealing with teenagers playing D&D are just not funny. Also the plot, while inherently harmless and flimsy, adds quite a few deadspots to the movie taking away from the fun of many of the skits.
The Onion Movie is definitely worth a watch though. While not as funny as I hoped it was funnier than I expected. Naturally, for those of you who know of The Onion, know to expect nudity and cursing, so this is not a movie to watch with your kids. Check it out, and hope you enjoy!
3/5
If you're bored one night, take a look
2009-11-09 - Bizarre!! But interesting. I find their books more interesting than this movie. But if you like irony and/or strange humor, you'll get a laugh or two from the movie. It is a nice departure from the typical hollywood fare.
Pretty Funny..But Can See Why It Was Shelved For So Long
2009-10-31 - Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3ENSZST1AJBRK
Not So Good, Not So Bad
2009-10-12 - Obviously "The Onion Movie" is by far better than such incredibly unfunny parody films as "Date Movie" or "Disaster Movie." Still, the filmic version of "America's finest news source" proves that it is extremely hard to make a successful feature-length sketch comedy. David Zucker is credited as one of the producers of "The Onion Movie," but the film somehow lacks the abundance of creativity of "Airplane!"
This is not to say the comedy skits in "The Onion Movie" are all unfunny. Some jokes are funny (with hilariously wooden Steven Seagal and his self-parody as the star of one stupidly titled action movie). The loosely connected story about the anchorman Norm Archer (Len Cariou), who is not happy about the company's new policies, goes nowhere, and some jokes of the film (a Britney Spears parody, for instance) are dated, but they can be overlooked. The film was made in 2003 and subsequently shelved for five years.
But you know the film's delayed straight-to-DVD release is not a good sign and actually "The Onion Movie" does not work as a whole. The film tends to draw out the sketches, some of which are still underwritten. I know some jokes are meant to be rude and offensive, but some of them are just offensive, not very funny (like the "who's the rapist" game"). Maybe with someone like John Cleese these flat and unfunny skits could have been something different.
"The Onion Movie" is a hit-and-miss comedy, a typical case of not so good, not so bad.
