I was pretty excited to find out that this movie existed because just like most people, i have at some point in my life appreciated the music parodies of Weird Al. I think I purchased at least a couple of his albums and much of the time I actually enjoyed his versions of the songs better than the original songs they were based on.
I've always appreciated biopics and homages to people and here is where people need to be warned before going into this movie. This is not a factual biopic, it is actually a spoof or parody of a biopic where they are kind of poking fun at biopics. This becomes increasingly evident as the movie goes on but might not be very evident at the start.
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While I am perfectly ok with a parody film about a parody song maker's life I went into this thinking that it was going to be a record of Al's life but with a bit of Hollywood flair. It becomes clear pretty early on that the movie is based on virtually no facts at all and at least for a little while this is pretty funny but then, if you were actually hoping for a movie that would glorify the majesty that is the ACTUAL Weird Al life, you aren't going to get it here. There is probably a real Weird Al biopic out there somewhere.
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A rather ripped Daniel Radcliffe plays the titular role and he does a pretty bang on job of it despite being what appears to be considerably shorter than Al actually is. Something that is a little bit annoying but I suppose they had to do is that Radcliffe doesn't actually sing any of the music, it is clearly overdubbed with Yankovic's own voice
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I guess it doesn't matter. With a very small overall budget and filmed over the course of just 18 days I would imagine that most of the people that were involved in this film including Radcliffe were doing it mostly because they really like Weird Al, and not for fame and fortune.
Things get a bit nuts in the film once it turns a corner where it obviously isn't meant to be at all true to life and it can be funny depending on if you were ready for that. For example in the film Al is the biggest star in the world and all of his songs are originals. The songs that in real life are parodies in the film the songs are done in reverse. In this bizarro world "Eat It" came out first and "Beat It" was a parody of his song.
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Madonna become a bit of a Yoko Ono and is a villain of sorts. Once she gets involved in Al's life things start to fall apart. It's fun for a little bit but honestly, I started to get a bit bored of it after a while because there is only so much ridiculous a person can stand when they were hoping for a real biopic that was going to honor Al. I guess since Al himself was a producer in this maybe he didn't want that. Someday, someone will want to do that film though, and I hope I am around to see it when that happens.
Should I watch it
I think that yes, you absolutely should, but don't fall for the hype of it being a true story because I think there are a lot of people, like me, that actually would like to see a serious biopic of Weird Al's life and that is not what this is. It's a fun ride that pokes fun at multiple genres and kind of gently ribs certain celebrities in it as well, namely Madonna, who was almost certainly ok with this just like everyone is other than Coolio.
I think it is worth seeing so yeah, I recommend it.
