Year One (12A)

The fate of Year One was probably irreversibly sealed after about 10 seconds when Vinnie Jones’ name flashed up on the title credits.

Its unwanted appearance drew a collective groan from the audience of critics and audible mutterings of ‘deary me’. Perhaps it was the sudden realisation that work drinks had been given up to watch a  film which would surely prove to be a bigger turkey than Sesame Street’s Big Bird.

In this instance first impressions were not deceiving, but the comedy caper was saved by the  performance of Michael Cera. The young actor, from Arrested Development, Superbad and Juno, was delightful as the gatherer Oh, who joins Zed, played by Jack Black, on his journey of self discovery.

His understated and unassuming charm prompted the film’s only genuine laughs and overshadowed the appalling Black, whose comedy appeals mainly to randy 13-year-old schoolboys. The film is also directed by former Ghostbuster Dr Egon Spengler, aka Harold Ramis and that surely gives it some extra kudos for anyone who lived through the 1980s.

The clever use of Cera, who seems particularly hard done by – in one scene he pees all over his face – somehow dilutes the manic ramblings of Black, and keeps the laughs coming.
The gloriously camp High Priest of Sodom, played by Oliver Pratt also delivers some deliciously  deviant lines.

The story follows Zed and Oh after they are banished from their village when Zed, an incompetent hunter, munches on an apple from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. They are joined for much of their quest for knowledge by Cain, played by David Cross, who they meet seconds before he bludgeons his brother Abel, Paul Rudd, with a large rock.

Cross puts in a decent comedy performance as the manipulative Cain who sells Zed and Oh, along with the rest of the primitive village and their crushes Maya and Eema, into slavery.

They are carted off to the parched city of Sodom by a ruddy-faced Vinnie Jones, where the evil King and High Priest are sacrificing virgins to appease the gods in the hope they will deliver some rain.

Cue an unlikely rescue where Zed and Oh dethrone the king, offend everyone in the process, kill the high priest, do a little rain dance to help the citizens and get their girls.

The film’s continuity might be a little suspect  – time seems to leap forwards 10,000 years every few minutes, but it doesn’t alter what is a silly, smutty kind of film, along the lines of American Pie.

It is gutter humour of the lowest kind, jokes about tasting poo and gags about men and women’s sexual parts.

But there are some bright spots, most notably from Cera, Cross and Pratt, and there is also an amusing cameo from Hank Azaria, as the bloodthirsty Abraham with a taste for snipping off foreskins.