I like Patrick Warburton, a lot. So I sort of wish he hadn’t shown up to the premiere of his new comedy at AFI Dallas, because there’s nothing more uncomfortable than sitting a few rows in front of the film’s star and not laughing, not even once. I’m sure he didn’t notice, I’m just one bored face in the crowd, but when you’re sitting there struggling to keep awake in the midst of this dead-end mess it feels like his eyes are boring straight into the back of your head.
I escaped the theater without being throttled by the mighty hands of The Tick, but after he reads this review, well the next time I may not be so lucky. Rock Slyde just isn’t very clever or funny. It’s exactly the kind of movie you’d expect it to be, after all it stars Patrick Warburton and Andy Dick, not Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd.
Warburton plays a private eye and the premise is that this is a film noir comedy, which means Patrick does a lot of voice over. Except Warburton so underplays the character, plays him so low key that there’s no real energy to anything he does. Oh he has a case? Yeah he seems as bored by it as we are. And the film itself never really capitalizes on any of the gags it sets up. There are so many ways they could have amped this thing up, taken it further, but Rock Slyde passes up every comedy exit ramp, even the ones with big flashing signs saying “for big laughs go here!”
Rock Slyde is up against an evil cult run by Andy Dick. I know, that sounds funny doesn’t it? Yeah mostly it’s not. They’re called Bartologists and they control your mind with free cookies. It’s like brainwashing by way of Disney. Most of the movie feels that way, the characters all seem like something that fell out of a Lego play set. Rock Slyde for instance, doesn’t drink alcohol, he drinks mouthwash which he keeps in a decanter on his desk. Why? I have no idea it’s just there. I guess this is what qualifies as a comedy bit.
Comedy though, is very subjective. To be fair I must report that there were a great many people in the audience with me who were laughing. I just wasn’t one of them. The plot was a dead end, the actors seemed bored, and the production was careless, filled with actors wearing smudged garments and badly lit rooms full of ugly fluorescent lights. The film noir comedy genre has already been done so well by movies like The Naked Gun, it’s hard to justify another entry with as little to offer as this one. Sorry Patrick, it’s nothing personal.
