Short review?
Boring, outdated, horribly narrated, and zero substance. There's no way anyone that made this is a Weird Al fan.
Ok, more in depth review...
I went into this with at least some excitement as I'm a lifelong 'Weird Al' fan, enjoying both his music and Al as a person. I didn't worry too much about the less than stellar review score, I never really do. That said... This is objectively bad.
First, this doc was released in 2023, which would lead the viewer to assume the interview is recent. In truth, based on some of the things Al talks about, the interview is from 2010-2011. At one point he refers to his upcoming album having a polka that features a Lady Gaga song. This would be Polka Face from his 2011 album Alpocalypse.
Along with it being outdated, it also jumps around a lot making it feel disjointed. For example, after discussing Straight Outta Lynnwood (2006) and Alpocalypse (2011), it comes out of nowhere talking about Poodle Hat (2003) being his first album of the "new millennium."
Then, perhaps the worst part is the absolutely terrible narration. It starts off with her pronouncing My Bologna as "my ba-low-nya." Then, when talking about Al's grammar centric parody of Blurred Lines called Word Crimes, the narrator refers to it as *World* Crimes.
Immediately, that shows you that the people making this are not Weird Al fans. They're just making a short, cheap documentary with no reverence for the subject matter. That's not a recipe for success. The narration is so devoid of emotion that I actually had to look up whether or not this was just a computer generated voiceover.
Speaking of which, as mentioned in my headline, I really do wonder if the narration was written by ChatGPT as, much like the answers you get from programs like that. You can't really trust that it's 100% accurate.
I don't recommend this for anyone, but it's especially not for anyone who is already a big Weird Al fan.
If you're already a fan, the inaccuracies and lack of any affection for Weird Al will frustrate you. If you aren't already a big fan, it does absolutely nothing to persuade someone to become a fan.
If you'd
It's kind of like the music documentary equivalent of those generic compilation albums of popular songs, but performed by uncredited studio musicians from Canada.
If you want to see a decent Weird Al doc, his VH1 Behind the Music is a lot of fun and it can be found on YouTube. Honestly, you'll get more info about Al from watching "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story," and that's a parody of his life.
