I hope few people walk into this thinking it's a serious biopic, you'll be in for quite the surprise. Although Weird starts in a conventional manner, you'll realize that a devotion to reality wasn't the primary goal of the film. It's a parody of the music biopic genre, think Walk Hard instead of Walk the Line or Ray. But the tone and vibe is a little different. Instead of winking at the audience or pausing for laughter, the cast and the crew play it completely straight as if the material was factual. This is an admirable choice, it allows you to pick up on a few jokes that are specifically making fun of movies like this. It reminded me a little of the Naked Gun movies, it fires off gags continually and Weird isn't worried about you catching every single one of them. Weird bounces from scene to scene and you're either going to cruise right along with it or get left in the dust.
Some actors/actresses are natural born chameleons but other A-list talents aren't required to stretch into different characters. Their natural charisma carries them and they get away with playing the same character with a different name several times over. Daniel Radcliffe is a talent but he also possesses a rare versatility. He doesn't just take the easy layups, he does strange and exciting projects and I'm becoming a bigger and bigger fan of his with each movie I see him in. He's great in Weird, he's obviously giving it his all and his enthusiasm is infectious. He's also really funny and hopefully this will be a showcase for his comedic talent as well. Between this and The Lost City, he's having a great year. Evan Rachel Wood is excellent as Madonna, she's playing up her bombshell angle from moment one but she's great at it and she plays off Radcliffe really well. She's very funny in her own right and their performances together were my favourite part of the movie. Rainn Wilson is a pleasant addition as Dr. Demento, he's wacky enough without pushing the envelope too far. Al Yankovic cameos in a nice meta role as music exec Tony Scotti. There are too many celebrity cameos to list but every member of the cast gets what the movie is going for and there aren't any missteps or false notes from anyone performing.
Weird rarely misses and the aspects I didn't like weren't things the movie did wrong. There was a conscious choice to keep going bigger and more outlandish as the plot unfolded and there was a moment that I disconnected from it just because of how divorced from reality it became. This will work for some people, it just didn't for me. The humour had been pretty pointed at genre tropes and Al's material before and it just became more and more broad with each deviation. I still laughed throughout the entire run time but I still would have went another direction.
Weird's amiable nature and stellar lead performances won me back every time I started to waver on it. It's above all else a celebration of the sweet and goofy nature of Yankovic's work and it's hard to fault the movie for trying to blaze a path of it's own even if it's execution is scattershot. I'm glad Weird is receiving some well earned buzz and while I'd actually rate it as a 7.5/10, I'll round up to an 8/10. It may not be a "must view" theatre experience but it's a rare enough parody that's worth checking out on streaming if you get the chance.
