You have not heard of this film. You haven't heard of it because it's not been advertised, at all, to anyone. Just finding a showing of this movie meant going to the Odeon in Greenwich [a 15 minute walk from the O2] and we were the only people in the theatre for the first 10 minutes. Eventually there were six of us. Even the projectionist must have given it up as a bad job and fucked off because the screen wasn't aligned properly and cut off the bottom half of the subtitles [it's not a foreign film, it just has some subtitles in it occasionally]. It's hardly surprising it was so difficult to get to see.

MacGruber the film is based on MacGruber the sketch, performed in threes on Saturday Night Live [A show which is not aired in the UK but DID bring us Wayne’s World, A Night at the Roxbury and not one other decent film]. It's a parody of the old show McGuyver, which I'm pretty sure also doesn't air over here. In it Will Forte [The Brothers Solomon, American Dad] plays MacGruber, an explosives expert trapped in some sort of Control Room [ranging from Submarine Control Room to Mansion Control Room] with his assistant Vicki [Kristen Wiig from Knocked Up and Adventureland] and that week's guest host. There's a bomb and MacGruber must defuse it using only the items he has to hand [the theme song for the sketch explains "Making lifesaving inventions out of household materials!"] Unfortunately he is easily distracted and the bomb always explodes.

How does this make a movie? I was friggin' terrified when I read news that they were making a MacGruber feature film. It's a 90 second sketch! Plus SNL Sketch based movies are usually very bad. I held out no hope, no hope, no hope at all. But when it was released in America it got good reviews across the board. It made almost absolutely NO money, but the people who DID see it liked it. I had to watch it for myself and, having followed the enchanted road up the sheer cliffs of Bekkrahan and through the Forest of Despair, we found a cinema that was playing it and paid our money. [Nick actually paid £28 to see this movie in the end, because he's not ready for the Internet yet].

MacGruber has been dead for 10 years, or so the world thinks, after his wife is blown up on their wedding day. Powers Boothe tracks him down to a remote mountain village and, along with Ryan Phillippe [Who still exists, apparently] try to recruit him for one last mission. The experimental nuclear warhead, the X5, has been stolen by Dieter Von Cunth [yes.... Cunth, played by the new Val Kilmer, sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts] who is the man responsible for MacGruber's wife's detonation.

MacGruber assembles his team and, after one or two mishaps, gets on the case. Obviously MacGruber is shit, otherwise this wouldn't be funny, and it's largely up to Ryan Phillippe to keep things on track. It's a bit like Inspector Gadget. Essentially he's the ‘highly decorated yet incredibly poor’ soldier type you get in movies sometimes. Everyone keeps going on about how amazing they were on this occasion or on that coup, yet they seem to consistently dick everything up. It's funny, but not right away, seemingly saving up all its jokes for the 3rd act. MacGruber is kind of a blow hard asshole and without Forte's charm and delivery it'd be easy to dislike him as a character. Kristen Wiig as Vicki St. Elmo is good, but she's not given very much to do and really only exists in the movie for when they work the sketch in. There's a love plot there but its stuck on out of obligation more than need. Ryan Phillippe is capable if a little bland as the ‘By the Book’ proper soldier who has to put up with MacGruber's crap, and Val Kilmer does a yeoman like job of the villain. Basically everyone's pretty good and the movie is pretty good. I'd say go check it out but you'll never find anywhere to do that in, so wait for the DVD release and LOVEFILM it or something.

When it's funny, it's very funny. Just takes too long to get there.