Year One is an unfortunate footnote on three good careers. First off, it was co-written by the late, great Harold Ramis - who clearly left his subversive glasses and eye for satire at home that day - and it featured a young Michael Cera, fresh from some of his first successes alongside Black. In the least Ramis-like pitch ever, the pair play cavemen in an odd free-form Biblical romp, which plays like someone suggested how silly the Bible would look if you pitched it to people for the first time without any prior experience of its importance. That in itself is not a bad idea; but what could have been a barbed allegory for religious silliness (featuring Aliens or something, if someone went full Douglas Adams) ends up being a child-friendly, unfunny catastrophe of BioDome proportions. Black's performance is typical of his Dialed In period of work. He mugs and acts like a slightly funny-looking numb-skull, in what might have been a reasonably funny performance if this were a short vignette, but by about minute 13 he's almost insufferable. It could have been Mel Brooks-like. It could have been pithy and poisoned and hilarious. But it wasn't, and everyone should be thoroughly ashamed - apart from Vinnie Jones. Because this is probably his level. Which Jack Black films do you think deserve to be considered his best and worst? Share your own picks below in the comments thread below.
