Year One is a comedic look at man’s beginnings starring Jack Black and Michael Cera. Zed (Black) and Oh (Cera) are cavemen who don’t fit in with their tribe. Zed is an inept hunter, while Oh is a gatherer whose talents lie in his mental capacities. After Zed eats from the tree of knowledge he gets banned from his tribe and persuades Oh to come with him to start their own tribe. Zed also accidentally sets his village on fire before his banishment, leaving his tribe homeless and ripe for bandits.
After the tribe gets captured, Zed and Oh try to track them down to rescue Maya (Juno Temple) and Eema (June Diane Raphael) who are the women they love. During their adventures the duo comes across well-known biblical characters including Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd), Abraham (Hank Azaria) and Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), as well as legendary cities Sodom and Gomorrah. Once they track down Eema and Maya they must deal with the king (Xander Berkley) and his High Priest (Oliver Platt) who would rather play with the male slaves than female slaves. The duo are trying to find the girls, but get caught for entering the temple and are sentenced to be stoned to death. Zed convinces them to have mercy and have their sentence commuted to hard labor until their deaths. Once the king decides to sacrifice two virgins (Maya and Eema) they scramble to save them, with Oh doing the only thing with Eema that would make her worthless as a sacrifice.
As a fan of Jack Black, Michael Cera, David Cross, and Paul Rudd, I had high expectations for this movie. Plus the trailer looked funny, but as we know trailers can be cut to make anything look good and unfortunately that was the case here. Year One comes across as a watered down version of the classic Mel Brooks film History of The World Part I. There are so many funny actors in this film but the material isn’t up to their caliber and wastes their talent and your time.
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