News-Record.com

I'm fairly sure that Andy Samberg did in fact 'do it his way' with 'HOT ROD.' The film was co-written and directed by his Lonely Island team. Also, I am really sure that the movie is funny as heck - way funnier than the undeserving box-office smash "I Pronounce You Chuck and Larry."

USA Today's Claudia Puig describes "Rod" as a botched "sophomoric" comedy, but what she obviously failed to realize is that the movie was going for the absurd instead of sophomoric. In the real world, a character like Samberg's Rod Kimble wouldn't be able to survive, but "Hot Rod" isn't set in the real world. No, Rod and his friends live inside an 80's movie fantasy, loaded with power metal montages to glory, and people who use "Footloose"-esque 'punch-dancing' as an anger management technique. Also, any reviewer who watched the film, and did not comment on the amazing comedy work of "All the Real Girls" star Danny McBride, simply didn't get it.

As a piece of filmmaking, "Hot Rod" maintains that humble, back-yard movie quality that many people dug in Samberg's SNL shorts. The movie may not have the budget or laugh ratio to go down as the funniest movie of this year (a title which belongs to "Knocked-Up" so far), but its destiny lies in becoming a required college comedy along with the likes of "Super Troopers," "Office Space," and "Happy Gilmore." Mark my word, in five years, one will soon be able to find a copy of "Hot Rod" in nearly every college dorm room in America.

P.S. The "Hot Rod" soundtrack is probably the best $7.99 I have ever spent on iTunes. I especially dig the song "Head Honcho" from the Queens of the Stone Age under the guise of a fake hair metal band named 'Gown.'

Haven't yet seen the movie myself, but you're the first person I know who has and liked it.

When I said "do it his way" I meant not try so hard to graft his sense of humor onto what's obviously an abandoned Will Farrell vehicle. That much is obvious just from the trailer. Made me want to intentionally NOT see it.

There are a staggering number of pretty scathing reviews and they can't all be "not getting it."

From Variety: "Those hoping for feature-length doses of Samberg's 'Lazy Sunday' wit will have to settle for just plain lazy, as "Hot Rod" aims low and still manages to miss its target."

From Rolling Stone: "Andy Samberg is cool beans. At least he is on SNL, where he rocked that "D*ck in a Box" video with Justin Timberlake. But his screen debut is out of the Will Ferrell reject pile. Just when you want Hot Rod to rev, it stalls."

From L.A. Weekly: "It’s not that Hot Rod, which Schaffer directed from a script (by Pam Brady) originally conceived as a Will Ferrell vehicle, doesn’t have its moments ... But like so many movies from the SNL factory, there are perhaps 10 to 15 minutes of good, gag-worthy material here stretched out to interminable lengths. Or to put it another way: It’s a very small d**k in an oversize box."

From Reel.com: "This is a movie so lazy and so void of even the most rudimentary sense of storytelling that it showers the viewer with contempt—other critics can say whatever they want about "torture porn" like Saw and Hostel, but I've never felt as abused by a filmmaker as I did in Hot Rod."

From Entertainment Weekly: "There are a few other minor laugh sequences in this puttering vehicle for the affable SNL viral-video star Samberg of ''Lazy Sunday'' fame, but most of them (like a long goof on the phrase ''Cool beans!'') don't really flow into the otherwise conventional frame of the movie. Wait until the best parts pop up on YouTube."

Roger Ebert did give it three stars, saying:

"The movie is funny because it is sincere. It likes Rod. It doesn't portray him as a maniacal goofball, but as an ambitious kid who really thinks, every single time, that he will succeed."

That's the only thing making me think I'll catch it when it comes to DVD.

The number of negative reviews isn't quite so 'staggering' considering that 28 out of 74 reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a positive review.

The positives weren't just grabbed from hack radio critics or Larry King either. Aside from Roger Ebert, L.A. Times' Susan Carpenter, Onion AVclub's Keith Phipps, and San Francisco's Rossiter Drake all liked the film. A lot.

With a 38% positive rating "Hot Rod" yielded just enough positives to avoid the title of critical failure. Was not even low enough to crack the RT's ten worst of the year so far. Ranked number ten, the needless prequel "Hannibal Rising" made a truly staggering 16% positive rating - less than half the rating of "Rod".

And also this week, Matthew Vaughn's "Stardust" comes out against "Rush Hour 3" (where has Chris Tucker been hiding for the past six years?). "Stardust" is based on a novel by Neil (The Sandman comix) Gaiman, who is producing "Beowulf," the original English action-adventure fantasy, due out in November. Vaughn said in an interview that his next project will be directing "Thor" based on the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby character. And speaking of Smilin' Jack and The King, I see that craigslist this week had a casting call for "The Incredible Hulk" in Toronto. Yes, yet _another_ Hulk movie.

I can't believe I forgot those, Steve. Thanks for adding them. I'll make an update.

Joe: No way you're going to get an argument from me saying "Hot Rod" could possibly be worse than "Hannibal Rising" -- but a little over a third of the reviewers gathered by Rotten Tomatoes not thinking the movie sucked doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement to me.