There are times as a critic when media that is currently available is subpar. In lulls, you just have to wade through it and hope for the best. As much as the public might think that we just love to eviscerate, it is just soul-crushing as you see wasted potential. These all canât be award winners though.
When it was announced that Mel Brooks was finally makes a sequel to one of his most popular films, I was genuinely excited. History of the World Part II was a four-night miniseries on Hulu a couple weeks ago. Continuing in that first filmâs tradition, each episode is comprised of hilarious segments that take potshots at great leaders and grandiose events. As the series unfolded, it became apparent that Mel wasnât in complete control here.
A bevy of writers contributed very little to show for it. After rewatching the original, what was clearly lacking here was a sense of cohesion in the style of comedy at play. In one scene you would have a gag about quack doctoring and the next about certain appendages being sliced off. It maybe wasnât wise having Johnny Knoxville and crew doing their shtick around Rasputin.
Some of them worked in the way good SNL sketches do. The Shirley Chisholm sitcom played on how insane the coinciding history seemed. If it wasnât real, you would have thought it was a game a Mad Libs. Mel Brooksâs usual silliness shines through in segments like Anastasia Romanov being an internet influencer or the Underground Railroad being an actual subway. But when Nick Kroll and JB Smoove enter the picture, the profanity and bawdy humor is turned up to eleven. Ike Barinholtz as General Ulysses Grant and the aforementioned Shirley with Wanda Sykes were standouts. It is just hard to recommend this as a whole. Nice try, Mr. Brooks.
From poor comedy to even poorer drama, Daisy Jones and the Six on Prime Video takes on a more tired concept: the faded rock star. This isnât to say that this goldmine has been plundered enough. I just havenât seen it dug into so monotonously. Having grown up with Behind the Music, the format presented feels a bit old hat. Yes, they try to gussy it up with some use of mockumentary trappings. However, when it comes to the main drama, it feels lesser than the sum of its parts.
In the span of fifteen minutes, we go from one character being through a bender on tour to just leaving rehab. Bravo to the screenwriters for efficiency, but it felt like no time had passed from Point A to Point B. It is screenwriting 101, guys; show donât tell. As for the writers, this comes to us from the minds behind the film 500 Days of Summer. That catapulted them to not much in terms of success after. To be perfectly honest, their debut hasnât really aged that well either.
Granted, these two are adapting a bestselling novel which is probably much better. Given that one of them, Scott Neustadter, wrote Summer about his own failed relationship; his gender dynamics fall into tired cliches. In one scene Daisy tells a man she is seeing that he canât just take âinspirationâ from her, perhaps an atonement. All the 70s trappings are here: the drugs, the sex, the gauzy scarf over the lamp. All signifiers, no substance. Cameron Crowe did more over twenty years ago. Riley Keough and Sam Claflin are great to look at, as is all the cast. I only wish it could have taken more care to get to where we are in episode three. This is really just a review the first third. Maybe it gets better. Sorry that this wasnât a more fruitful group of entertainment, but sometimes you just have to take a chance.
