I am ashamed to admit that I saw Hot Rod

I went to this movie with that I thought was an open mind. “So here is an up and coming comedian trying to break his way into the movie biz” I thought. A lot of great movies have come from actors out of Saturday Night Live right? At least ones that are good for a laugh every now and again like Happy Gilmore, Black Sheep, and Tommy Boy. All are funny movies that are not so bad to sit through even if you didn’t get most of the humor.

I am sorry to say that Hot Rod did not follow in the tradition at all.
Hot Rod was terrible.

I can’t think of one “original” redeeming quality for this movie. The only parts that I laughed at were bits taken from other popular movies / TV shows; one being a longer version of the falling down a mountain scene from Black Sheep; the other being a mispronunciation of wh-words straight out of Family Guy.

The story was put together with toothpicks and string. For an “up and coming stunt man” in the finale five minutes the main character magically has everything he needs to jump 15 buses. Bear in mind that the entire movie he is performing stunts on a moped. Perhaps this is part of Andy Samberg’s (the Hot Rod himself) humor and I just missed the boat. If so, then most of the other viewers in the theater were also sitting on the pier as the ferry passed them by too.

The acting was horrendous. I think this movie was made with people that Andy Samberg owed favors to. So he gave them supporting roles (what a great idea!). Somehow that worked for Adam Sandler, but it failed miserably here.

There was a moment in this movie where Hot Rod and he little brother said “cool beans” to each other about 50 times in a row. They also made this sense into an 80’s style rap video. It really was terrible, wasn’t funny, and completely alienated the audience.

I am sure Andy or the director was trying to ride the popularity of “Lazy Sunday” (a SNL skit that was downloaded or viewed over a million times on you tube) with this “cool beans” rap, but they really didn’t do a good job of intergrading it into the movie very well. Personally I never found that skit to be very funny to begin with.

It wasn’t until after the rap and a few other scenes that made no scene that I realized; this movie was made for tripping acid. That was it. That is the only possible way that I think someone could actually enjoy this movie. Even then I would think that it would be completely terrifying.