Weird At Last

Last year, a movie was released that I very much wanted to see, but I was basically denied the chance to do so -- Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. It wasn't released in theaters or (at the time) on physical media. I don't have a Roku device, or a desire to get one. (I actually did have a friend offer to have me over to watch the movie on his Roku, but we never quite got around to it.) Finally, in what felt like a quite random moment, I found the movie available for in-flight viewing on the plane out to Boston.

The movie is, ostensibly, a biopic of "Weird Al" Yankovic. But just as many of his songs are parodies of popular music, so this movie is really a parody of biopic movies. That isn't a wholly original idea, of course. Most notably, we already have the very funny Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. And at first, the movie sort of feels like a "Walk Hard Lite." For one thing, Weird is cleaner than Walk Hard (because that's Yankovic's brand; he never swears, and rarely dips into anything you'd classify as "adult humor"). That's fine, such as it is... but Weird also starts out as a less-funny Walk Hard: a bit less clever, a bit more toothless, as it kind of tells all the same jokes winking at biopic movie tropes.

But right around the end of the first act, the movie begins to loosen its grip on reality (that wasn't exactly tight to begin with). "Weird Al" the character becomes more untethered from his real world counterpart, and the farther apart they drift, the funnier the movie gets. By the time the movie was earnestly saying how Al was ripped off by Michael Jackson, I pretty much had a perpetual smile on my face. By the time the character of Madonna shows up (and I do mean a character; she's even further from her real-life counterpart than Yankovic), the movie is pure, anarchic fantasy. It's also much, much funnier for the huge swings it's taking.

Parody so often hangs on the commitment of the actors, so it helps that Weird has an excellent, committed cast. Daniel Radcliffe shines as Al himself, delivering deadpan lines with steely intensity in a way I think we haven't seen since Leslie Nielsen built his second career on that. Evan Rachel Wood seems like she's having the time of her life as Madonna. Rainn Wilson's take on Dr. Demento is a ton of fun, and actually delivers my favorite joke of the movie (in response to Al asking if Demento will be his mentor; it's all about the long pause after). As Al's parents, Toby Huss and Julianne Nicholson play their biopic cliche roles to the hilt. Then there's the staggering number of cameo appearances throughout the movie, from Will Forte, Jack Black, and Lin-Manuel Miranda to the real "Weird Al" himself.

To make a metaphor inspired by how I finally watched the movie, once Weird: The Al Yankovic Story reaches its "cruising altitude," it's a lot of fun... even if the takeoff is a bit rough. Overall, I'd give it a B. If you're at all a fan of Yankovic and haven't yet seen it? Well, first: I understand, it's been basically impossible to do so if you don't have a Roku. But it's worth seeking out if you can.