Life explored with no accuracy at all, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story makes good on the wild relationship Funny or Die has with the unique, eponymous star. “Weird” Al Yankovic has delighted, destroyed and created with great parody work for decades. Fitting it is to have his biopic be just that, a parody, is a full-circle achievement for Daniel Radcliffe and company. There couldn’t be any better system for creating the life of a parody artist on screen, than with a parody. Art imitates life imitates art. Cyclical at the best of times, and equally as surprising in its pacing, timing and experimentation. Typically American and the same residual humour housed in the likes of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, but with a bit more sophistication.
Still, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story depends solely on its comedic stylings and the immediacy that Radcliffe brings to the screen. Success and a rise to the top isn’t the real important piece for this, what is important is a desecration and criticism of the music industry. Gluttony is an easy thing to fall into, and the recent surge of Netflix and streaming service documentaries looking to peddle that rock and roll lifestyle is a tad disturbing. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is smart in its criticism but never venomous. Weird Al isn’t that type of guy. He isn’t as he is presented here, and that is the engaging part of this all. It is a piece that removes Yankovic far from how he actually is as a public figure.
Eccentric ego-fuelled beasts in a fairly common process shows the fish out of water story alive and well. There is an understanding of that representation but also never an overindulgence. With such a boom in popularity for the 1980s aesthetic and the people that thrived in it, the restraint shown by director Eric Appel. Perhaps it is his involvement in the short feature that spawned this creation that helps most of all. He was around for the 80s boom before it even happened. Evan Rachel Wood is a tremendous ballast, an immediate insanity presented by her portrayal of Madonna, which strikes through as more of a mockery than that of Radcliffe’s rendition of Weird Al. Drug-running, dark pasts and intense surroundings never quite come through as comedic as they should be, but even a disinterest in Weird Al can see the average audience through this one.
Most of that is down to the talents of the cast and how dedicated they are to a strange form of satire that has yet to be succeeded or done better. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and the reams of litter that come from that travesty are no match or pace for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. As innovative as it is free from the shackles of adaptation, it is also a fairly flatlining comedy, with parts sticking out not for their smartness but their simplicity or reassurance in the usual form of the genre. Either way, there is a lighter touch to this piece that relies on the uniqueness of Weird Al, whether his music can be appreciated or not is by the wayside.
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