CNN
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“Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” actually earns its title, working, appropriately, not as an precise film biography however an outlandish parody of 1, crammed with comedy cameos and weird flights of fancy.
Starring Daniel Radcliffe and produced and co-written by Yankovic himself, like its namesake’s songs, it’s at occasions little too foolish, however nonetheless energetic and attention-getting sufficient to assist put the simply ignored Roku channel on folks’s radar.
The amusing conceit behind the whole undertaking – increasing upon a spoof film trailer launched in 2010 – is {that a} Bizarre Al biopic features like considered one of his chart-topping songs, taking the type of the style however turning it on its head. Throw in a who’s who of comedy expertise popping in alongside the way in which, and there’s one thing to maintain viewers engaged and largely entertained, whereas maybe googling alongside to see the place (if all of it) the reality lies.
Take Yankovic’s mother and father, who inform him flatly as a youth, “Cease being who you might be and doing the stuff you love.” Or the way in which he begins enjoying the accordion, after his dad beats a door-to-door salesman inside an inch of his life.
Lastly, there’s Al stumbling into his musical profession, remodeling the track “My Sharona” into “My Bologna” on the fly when his roommates ask him to make sandwiches, and later catching the attention of the novelty-song maestro/disc-jockey Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson), who really did play a job in Yankovic’s discovery, simply not fairly in the way in which depicted right here.
The movie embarks on its weirdest odyssey by charting Al’s relationship with Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood, in a fairly uncanny impersonation), who actually did ask him to parody considered one of her songs, however perhaps didn’t turn into his girlfriend and in some unspecified time in the future get kidnapped.
Directed by Eric Appel (who produced the aforementioned quick, and shares script credit score with Yankovic, who additionally has a cameo), “Bizarre” is produced by way of the oldsters at Humorous or Die. At first blush, the thought of manufacturing one thing utterly totally different round Yankovic, infused with the identical playful irreverence that he dropped at his tunes, seems like simply what the physician ordered.
Given its slim underpinnings, the concept that it runs out of steam a bit earlier than it’s throughout appears inevitable and tolerable, particularly when considering that its topic’s most memorable creations run about three minutes, max.
In a approach, nothing might be a extra excellent signal of the starvation content material within the streaming age than inflating a bite-sized comedy quick right into a full-blown film. But even permitting for the truth that “Bizarre” isn’t way more than a snack, as the person in query sang, simply eat it.
“Bizarre: The Al Yankovic Story” premieres November 4 on the Roku Channel.
