The Ten
The ten
referred to in the title is the ten commandments.
It's been a
long time since the days when Charlton Heston could pull off wearing sandals
and getting the movie-going public to care about these tablets of life
rules. Cecil B. DeMille is long dead. How does one make the ten
commandments viable to an attention-span-limited, cynical 21st century public?
The makers
of The Ten have decided to do it by mining them for broad sketch comedy.
Some parts
of it is very successful. Other parts... not so much so.
Paul Rudd
plays a director who is making a film telling ten stories which illustrate
each of the commandments (though very loosely, granted...).
Like all
sketch comedy, some of this is hysterical. Some of it is stupid.
For
example, Winona Ryder's torrid love affair with a ventriloquist's dummy is
priceless. The story of a guy who becomes a media celebrity after
skydiving without a parachute also has some clever things to say about
today's celeb culture. Also funny is a love story between two male
prison inmates.
Some of the
less likable skits include a doctor who leaves scissors in a patient as a
goof, an animated skit about a lying, drug-dealing rhino and a suburban
househusband who skips church to sit around naked with his friends and
listen to Roberta Flack.
In the
meantime, between stories, Rudd's character keeps getting interrupted by his
wife (Famke Jannsen) and his hot young girlfriend (Jessica Alba) or bitching
about his life to his buddies and the audience.
It all ends
up with a weird extended jam-session where all the characters tell their
story in song.
After
watching The Ten, I honestly don't feel like I know anything more
about the ten commandments than I did going in. However, I did get
some good laughs mixed in along the way.
Alex Diamond
Copyright ©2008 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.
Posted: January 12, 2008.
