therhyswelsh’s review published on Letterboxd:
Nothing could fit the life and music of Weird Al Yankovic more than this bizarre little flick, a movie that acts as a spoof of the musical biopic, playing on the tropes that you would expect from these types of films. The movie is at its best when it’s being incredibly self referential, the movie is written by Yankovic himself so the movie can surprisingly be super self deprecating at times and that adds to its charm throughout. Not all jokes land throughout the film, but the absurdist humour is absolutely awesome when it does land, the over top segments are just what this film was made for, for being unaware with Weird Al, this movie is gonna be sending people straight to Wikipedia to see if anything adds up.
Daniel Radcliffe has been having a absolutely bizarre career since he left the Harry Potter franchise, and I support his career choice so much. The fact he is up for such wacky movies like this is is just a blast, and he’s a absolute blast here as well. He plays Weird Al with so much charm seeping through each scene, he really helps carry the weight of a lot of surprisingly emotional scenes that are spread across the flick. There’s some fun cameos spread throughout as well, from David Dastmalchian to Jack Black, they all land super well as some of the best jokes featured here. I do think the second half of this film is slightly weaker than the first half, the action stuff doesn’t really work super well for me and I think the film runs itself a bit dry once Madonna is involved, but the beginning and ending of the film is super solid, it’s just the middle portion that suffers.
Would definitely recommend this one, it’s a fun little spoof of the musical biopic, it’s super absurdist throughout and constantly gets weirder and weirder. Daniel Radcliffe is awesome in the title role, and the music feature by Weird Al himself is used exceptionally. Not every joke lands through its nearly 2 hour runtime, but enough lands to keep this weird film a surprisingly heartfelt and fun time, gonna leave this one off with a 7/10
