MacGruber? Do we really need this?
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The more I think about the MacGruber film, the more I realize that it's not an intentional spoof of a real television show so much as it's an accidental spoof of the current state of the film industry.If you're not a fan of Saturday Night Live or haven't seen it in a few years, you're probably wondering what this is. If you're even remotely aware of what MacGyver was, then you don't really need to know anything other than MacGruber is a recurring sketch that parody's MacGyver. MacGruber, the son of MacGyver, is placed in risk of imminent death the likes of which MacGyver was famous for thinking his way out of, only MacGruber usually gets distracted and ends up failing.
I've only ever seen one or two sketches and the result is usually somebody getting blown up.
Cute, but it's a redundant concept that's limited to people who saw and liked MacGyver in the first place. Nobody else is really going to get it, it'll be like watching a two hour version of Mr. Bean (which I fear will end up vastly superior by comparison.) Worse still, it's a symbol of everything that is wrong with Hollywood's shortsighted obsession with the safe and the old.
It apparently made more sense in Hollywood's twisted and dysfunctional state to make a costly feature film based on this SNL sketch than it did to just make a movie based on the show it was parodying. Devoid of all originality these days, it actually makes sense that some studio would look back on MacGyver and convince themselves that the once-loved series was ripe for a reboot on television, or possibly a new movie franchise.
Obviously I disagree, although I'd watch that movie, I'd groan that the business is still brain dead and still painfully terrified of taking any real risks on new material, which at this point is probably overflowing every inch of Los Angeles given how many original scripts are written on spec every year.
But to eschew that in favor of this is really taking the absurdity to a whole new level. I don't care who you get to star in it (Val Kilmer? I love the guy but when is the last time he brought one home? And as a villain..?) or who writes it, this is not going to work. People are going to stay away from this movie like the plague. They get it even if Hollywood doesn't.
I hope I'm wrong, but there's just no way this was a good idea.
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