An American Carol

A funny spoof on all anti-American movies that seem to spew from Hollywood like fire ants through the Texas prairie. Far from being all about Michael Moore, as liberals profess, this movie takes dead-on shots at general liberal/anti-U.S. propaganda that is taken as truth by the mainstream media and gullible Americans. The director is not afraid to give credit to Lincoln for going to war to fight slavery, when the Democrat Party of that day was willing to let the South have its way, just to avoid a war. I had to laugh when Malone and the Rosie O'Donnell character put up that radical Christian video as evidence that America deserved 9/11. If you know history as it happened, you will like this movie. If you know history as told by Hollywood, you will understand nothing. Good job Zucker, and now I want to see the Ben Stein movie that was in the previews.

I laughed when I came on here and saw a handful of sheepish shoegazers reviewing this movie. They called it 'propaganda', they called it a 'Conservative brainwashing tool.' Let's be honest for a few minutes. Hollywood is riddled with mind-numbingly moronic 'actors' who tell you how to feel, tell you how to spend your money, tell you how to vote, and tell you how you should live your life. Honestly, how can you 16 year old latte lappers truthfully view this film as 'propaganda'? It just makes me laugh.

Anyway, this film was a nice breath of fresh air. I'm sick of Sean Penn pouring his whining little do-nothing tears all over the television set. I'm sick of Opera sitting on her $6,000 white sofa while crying about every low-life druggy that plops onto the seat next to her. I'm sick of the ALCU grave diggers scouring the globe and looking for the next person who says the word 'black' or spills coffee on their lap. I'm sick of Rosie Odonnell spraying bacon bits out of her loud mouth while she thinks she's daytime TVs answer to all the world's problems. Like I said, this film was a breath of fresh air.

Watching this film I realized that modern day America has no General Patton, we have no war hero JFK, we have no liberty loving George Washington. Modern day America needs public officials that know the price of freedom...now I know some of you leftist Bolsheviks will laugh at that, but that's only to your demise. Billions of people around the world are suffering at the hands of brutal and power hungry dictators...yet you sit behind your computer, posting your inane blogs, and believing all the answers can be solved with a click of a mouse and a hug. Get a grip on reality and stop living in Candy Land.

-AZ3 USN

Some slapstick, mostly the kind of stuff you laughed at when Tom & Jerry did it thirty or forty years ago. Script-wise, it makes 'Goodburger' seem like comic genius. If you loathe Michael Moore, you'll probably find it hysterical. If you watch any network but FOX News, you'll possibly get a chuckle. But if you're just looking to throw away $9, go buy nine scratch-cards and save yourself the hour and half of your life.

I thought it was going to be good farce, going in. I'm no fan of Michael Moore, but it takes some particularly vile cowardice to claim that anyone "hates America" because of their political views. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain hate America. Joe Biden might accidentally call it the wrong name and Sarah Palin can't locate it on an unmarked world map, but they don't hate it. If the producers were seeking to attract the attention of independent moderates in the election season, they needed to put more work into the humor and less into making their already-fanatical base bark and clap like seals.

I loved Airplane! I think it's a staple on the American comedy scene. In fact, I love several of David Zucker's movies, but he seems to have lost his understanding of the American psyche in his last few attempts. An American Carol, for instance, could just as well have been a pro-Nixon movie, released soon after Watergate. I'm sure there will be a few who will find Zucker's portrayal of Michael Moore funny and they would likely find a Zucker portrayal of Martha Mitchell to be humorous, as well. The irony comes in Zucker's failure to realize that most people side with Michael Moore on his opinions, as well as the facts that support his opinions, which Zucker pokes fun at by treating them as if they were untrue.

As a Liberal, I didn't expect to agree with Zucker's political views, and yet, I felt compelled to watch it and give it a fair shake, believing that my difference in politics might not prevent me from finding it funny. Unfortunately, An American Carol ended up being as disconnected from reality as I'd feared beforehand and I can't help wondering what Hollywood genius figured it would be a good idea to make fun of a controversial American political icon, just as the vast majority of Americans were figuring out that his serious accusations were justified. If Zucker were around for the Boston Tea Party, he most surely would have had a blast ridiculing Samuel Adams, and those throwing tea overboard, and I'm sure he wouldn't have spared American revolutionaries for wanting independence, either, because Zucker seems all about protecting the establishment, no matter who it is and what faults it may have.

I may sound motivated by politics, but that's really not the impetus for my harsh review at all. We've all seen funny political humor that was driven by views that we didn't share, but this is different because Zucker is trying to force humor that just isn't there. Michael Moore offers a plethora of opportunities for humor, but there is nothing funny about portraying people as wrong, when in fact, they were right. And if I am wrong on this, then I have a great idea for a satire about Abraham Lincoln foolishly trying to end slavery, which I'm certain will have it's fans as well.

In general, I find myself enjoying a lot of comedy movies that were critically panned (BASEketball, Freddy Got Fingered, The Greasy Strangler) and I guess you could say I'm a fan of Zucker. This does not mean that I had incredibly high hopes for this movie, but I was just hoping for a solid comedy that takes a piss on politics. The first 10 minutes were pretty good, with an incredibly funny scene where Moore is shooting a scene in Cuba where everything is obviously really bad, which he is completely oblivious to (or repressing it) describing it as a socialist paradise. However, after the opening the movie slowly started to lose me, to the point where during the last 20 minutes i sank lower and lower from my bed until I laid down on the floor. I'm from Denmark, and of course I carry some personal opinions about American politics, which most people outside America do in 2018 because of social media. But this movie is pretty damn ham-fisted with its messages. One thing is that it only shows how stupid democrats can be. That would be totally fine with me if: 1) It was clever and funny. The "left" in this movie is so obnoxious. Watching this you keep asking yourself "do people really believe that leftists acts this way?" It should have either made clever critiques at their ideology or it should have went completely funny. Instead we get a pathetic "parody" (we see the same thing with leftists making fun of right-wings) that is so out of touch with reality and just frustrates you instead of making you laugh. 2) If it wasn't so serious. If the movie just tried to be funny and absurd that would be perfect. But there are so many obvious tries at making a point or to make you feel some kind of spark of nationalism (again, I'm not from America, but I seriously don't think that many people would feel that spark by watching this movie) that it kind of ruins a lot of the "background" jokes that Zucker is so wellknown for. His style and jokes really do not fit with the way this movie is written. Instead they just feel obligatory to remind you that the movie is in fact a comedy. Still, these signature jokes are the only thing that saves this movie from being the worst thing ever and they did manage to make me laugh a couple of times. The political jokes are just plain bad.

Aside from these problems the movie also suffers from bad acting, especially the lead. Farley is so incredibly annoying as Moore, but not in a good way and none of the other characters bring anything to the table. This doesn't seem like a fault of the actors but more that they didn't have anything to work with.

The script is also very confusing. It could have been the fact that I just lost focus because I was so bored but I got more and more bewildered throughout the movie. The movie is of course a retelling of A Christmas Carol, but it constantly shifts between reality, dreams, past and future. I haven't read the source material so I wouldn't know to what the degree that story does the same, but in this movie I never knew what was happening. The story suddenly started to move incredibly fast, which made a lot of the scenes where Moore is confronted with what would happen if America followed his ways incredibly confusing. I had no idea what lesson he was learing or why. This could be because of the movies short running time, but I'm not sure I wished it was longer.

My final problem with this movie is the message it is trying to portray. Again, if the movie went completely nuts like Team America that would be great and the jokes would land. But it doesn't. Which means you can't stop thinking about the message. I don't mind a patriotic movie, but this one is so bad at it. Do you believe that the wars in Middle Eastern countries are justified? Fine. But don't act like it isn't at least a somewhat complicated issue. This movie completely writes off anyone against war, and acts like the war against Nazi Germany is the exact same as the wars in Middle Eastern countries. There is so much more to delve into with instances like these but that would make this review even longer. Whatever you may believe you need to argue for it in a logical way and this movie doesn't do that at all.

I'm kind of sad seeing that this is the last of Zucker's movies and spoof movies in general seem to have died out. This movie had some potential but it squandered it with a poor message and confusing plot which in turn ruined a lot the jokes.