A Million Ways to Die in the West

Oh Seth. Seth. Seth Seth Seth. Seth…why Seth? Why?

A Million Ways To Die In The West is an amazing concept - Seth MacFarlane writing, directing, and starring in his own adaptation and parody of classic western films. It’s a match made in heaven, considering past MacFarlane parody and film work. Fresh off fame from Ted and his amazing Oscar hosting, the world was waiting for this movie with a lot of anticipation.

It’s crap. It’s utter crap. And that’s coming from a diehard MacFarlane junkie.

The problem isn’t the sense of humor. It’s mostly predictable MacFarlane raunch and insults. He seems to think that was the dividing factor for the movie. But that wasn’t it for me. It was his pacing. This wasn’t his sense of humor. Every joke was distant, a good three or four seconds too long. There wasn’t enough laughs to make it consistent or funny. Occasionally a laugh would be heard. But his humor works best with speed, and most importantly, confidence. Neither are here. Jokes take forever to finish, or they’re half hearted. 

Even though the cast is obviously a talented one, its kind of hard to respect any of them for their performances. Everyone in this is depressingly boring. It’s clear that the script isn’t doing anything interesting for any of them. Neil Patrick Harris’ normally hilarious self is replaced with a strange, unfunny mustache obsessed jerk. He serves no purpose except to be a jerk to the “nice guy” MacFarlane. And that’s the other problem - MacFarlane isn’t likable. That’s part of his charm; he can play a very likable jerk. But when you’re trying to pass off his asshole character as the nice guy, it falls apart. There’s no real reason to cheer for him, and yet we’re forced to. Add the usually mesmerizing Charlize Theron playing a disgracefully uninteresting character, Liam Neeson being incredibly underused, and a pretty awful ensemble cast, and you got yourself one heck of a messy film. 

The film is LONG. Way too long. We had a nice glimpse into the slow pacing of MacFarlane screenplays with Ted, a movie that took its time with its story and let it breathe, rather than shoving joke after joke down our throats like his Family Guy scripts. But this takes it too far. MacFarlane humor can take its time, but the last thing it can ever be is slow. Especially with jokes that insult. There can’t be time lingering after these jokes. And (I can’t believe this happened at one point), he tries to let explaining a joke be the joke. Wow, does it not work. At all. In the slightest. 

A Million Ways to Die in the West is a complete misfire. It completely falls flat as a comedy, and fails to evoke any emotion at all - funny or serious. I love Seth MacFarlane, and it will take more than one movie to pull me off his bandwagon. But this film had potential that was blatantly squandered by him. I hope he recognizes his blunders in time to fix his upcoming projects.

Rank - 1/5