My Review of "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story"

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story came out back in 2022 and I wanted to watch it for the longest time. Unfortunately if you don't have Roku you have to find alternative ways of watching this movie. It's exclusive to Roku and it's kind of a wise strategy on their part but sucks for us that don't have it. Though I wouldn't say this movie is a subscription seller.

This movie is a satire of a biography of a person that makes satires of songs. It feels just like a weird Al song but in movie form. Nothing is taken seriously and everything is absolutely over the top. The slapstick is never ending and I really liked it that way.

They even have a lot of celebrities from the 80's portrayed by popular artists today. Well not all of them are popular. They're probably all friends of weird Al in real life. Each of these cameos do a great job in satirizing a caricature of the famous person they are portraying. Every one is one step over the top than the next.

I wonder if a lot of the famous people that they're portraying approved of some of these reenactments. Some of the famous people aren't with us anymore but it makes you wonder what they would have thought.

In this movie, they talk about how Al is an innately gifted genius at satirizing artists. He goes on to a next level of artistry with the world at his feet when he creates original songs. He jokingly says that his rendition of "Eat It" was the original song before Michael Jackson satirized it with "Beat It". He starts to go insane when Michael satirizes his song with the joke being that's how he's angry at his own shtick.

Meanwhile, Madonna, the ever so opportunistic leach, latches onto Al hoping it will catapult her career. They even have a side story with Pablo Escobar going at great lengths to have Al play him a song for his birthday.

This movie is an absolute riot. They even added hilarious action sequences where Al is a badass killing everything that steps in his way. He also plays up a lot of movie cliches. I think he basically tried to research every cliché that he could think of and mixed them all into this movie to add a little fun to it.

If you're a fan of Al's work I'm sure you'll have an absolute riot watching this movie as the comedy is totally on brand with his music. Those that aren't familiar with his work will either get it or they won't. Some might think it's too over the top but if you like movies like Machete or Black Dynamite you might understand where this movie is going.

This type of comedy is sorely missed nowadays. I wished more studios would take chances and bring this type of humor back into film. I don't even think that it would cost them that much money to produce them because there isn't a lot of special effects or production costs. The biggest thing that they have is the big name cameos and I think many did the cameos as a favor to Al.

Overall, I had a really good time watching this movie. It makes me want movie studios to make more movies like this with this type of humor. It's a shame that this movie is exclusive to Roku. I think if they release this wide more people can appreciate it and studios will realize that they have an untapped goldmine there. I have to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. They can probably bring out a sequel to this and I'd check it out.