Step away from the penguins, Saget!

Farce of the Penguins might just make your eyes bleed

TIMOTHY BROWN STAFF

March of the Penguins is a beautiful documentary showcasing the difficult lives of penguins. It captured the hearts of millions and is probably one of the best nature documentaries in recent history. Well now, at long last, someone has made a spoof of that, titled Farce of the Penguins. What kind of person would do this, you ask? Bob Saget, that’s who. Bob Saget of Full House and America’s Funniest Home Videos fame has written and directed the worst spoof I have ever seen.

This isn’t a typical spoof movie. With spoofs such as Naked Gun or Naked Gun, hilarious, over-the-top situations mimic a wide array of actual films. Occasionally, those spoofs are enjoyable. This spoof cuts together actual documentary footage of penguins and couples it with voice-over work by various comic actors. Picture an 80-minute America’s Funniest Home Videos clip of penguins that is voiced-over by Bob Saget, and, need I say, isn’t funny.

The story centres on two penguins, Carl and Jimmy (Bob Saget and Lewis Black, respectively), who are travelling across the Antarctic to the breeding grounds so that Carl can find the right woman for him. While that setup suggests some minor amusement, the movie steadily gets worse right from the beginning. The voice-acting is terrible and obviously rushed, leaving one wondering why some of these people agreed to do the movie. Samuel L. Jackson is responsible for the narration, which is actually the only real highlight of movie. But Sam Jackson isn’t the only big name attached to the movie. Other actors that have roles include: Jason Alexander, Tracy Morgan, Christina Applegate, Norm MacDonald, Dane Cook, Whoopi Goldberg, Mo’Nique, Jamie Kennedy, and many others.

This is quite a crop of comedic talent, but everyone who took part in this terrible movie must have either been a friend of Bob Saget, got paid a ton of money, lost some sort of bet, or failed to find legitimate work elsewhere.

---

---

I’d like to try to provide you with a fair, objective review of the movie, to help you decide, when choosing your next film, if this is the one for you. I can’t do that. This movie took me over a week to watch. I had to watch it in 10- to 15-minute intervals — any longer and I would start to feel sick. The way the movie plays out, it’s as if it was made for five-year-olds, except that all of the jokes are incredibly crude, and there is constant cursing.

Now, I’m up for crude humour and I love dumb movies from time to time. This movie, however, sinks lower than any movie has sunk before (any movie that I’ve seen, anyway). The stupid, insipid jokes make you want to beat Bob Saget to death in fear that he might, one day, return to make another film this horrible. It’s like an evil that should be stopped before it destroys the world. So, when you go to rent a movie, don’t just skip this DVD when browsing; take all the available copies and burn them, with the hope that as a result of your timely actions, Bob Saget will be prevented from ever being allowed to make (or write) another movie.