A cowardly sheep farmer must find his courage when he is challenged by his ex's boyfriend and the deadliest gun-slinger in the west. Helping him in his quest, is a woman who is new in town, who happens to be full of surprises. A Million Ways To Die In The West is the sophomoric effort from director Seth MacFarlane. Seth MacFarlane also stars alongside Charlize Theron, Sarah Silverman, Giovanni Ribisi, Amanda Seyfried, Neil Patrick Harris, and Liam Neeson.
The movie is written by MacFarlane, Wellesley Wild, Alec Sulkin, the same trio of writers who brought the world Ted. Now, those three brought us a very funny film in Ted, but completely misfired here. The screenplay is bad, plain and simple. I don't have a problem with vulgarity in movies, as long as it serves some sort of purpose. For example, in The Wolf of Wall Street it added to the dimensions of the characters. It brought colorful life to their ways of speaking. Here it is just vulgar to be vulgar. It adds nothing to humor of the film. The dialog all feels the same as well. Perhaps bringing in another writer would have been a good choice, so they could add another voice to these characters. Seth MacFarlane's writing here doesn't really differentiate the voice between the characters. It almost feels as though he wrote for one character and then decided to split that character up into multiple versions of the same personality. His direction didn't help the film either. This movie was constantly uneven in tone. Something dark would happen followed by a fart joke.
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| Seth MacFarlane misfires with A Million Ways To Die In The West |
Charlize Theron did what she could with the material she was given. She is the best aspect of the movie by far. Neil Patrick Harris has a funny moment in the movie and plays his part well. Amanda Seyfried. What a waste of her acting potential. Her character was the definition of bland in the movie. She had nothing to do and she is a very capable actress. I don't even see the point of casting her if MacFarlane planned to use her the way he did. Sarah Silverman plays a prostitute who is dating Edward, a virgin played by Giovanni Ribisi. I felt that a lot of their scenes didn't work together because their jokes weren't landing. Liam Neeson is not in the film very much. I wish his character was more fun so we, the audience, could have fun along with him. Instead his character was just kind of meh. Don't get me wrong, Liam Neeson isn't bad in the movie, but his character is a bad guy just for the sake of being bad. His character was very one-dimensional. Now onto the biggest problem in the cast, Seth MacFarlane. I thought he was really bad in the movie. All of his weaknesses as an actor are exposed here. His portrayal of the character was too sarcastic for my taste. He had no redeemable quality that felt like he was worthy of being the titular character, or being a "good guy" even.There was too much winking at the camera going on from him.
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| Liam Neeson, Charlize Theron, and Seth MacFarlane |
This is a well made movie. All of the sets looked good and the visual effects were all neatly done. Together with cinematographer Michael Barrett, MacFarlane made a good looking movie. The problem didn't lie there however, it lied in its director. Too many repetitive jokes from too similar characters, and a lead who just doesn't work can describe this movie. There are a few funny jokes in the movie, but surprise surprise, the best jokes are in the trailer. A Million Ways To Die In The West is a comedy whose director found a million ways to make this movie disappointing.
2.6/5
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