Movie review – “The Onion Movie” (2008) **1/2

Apparently, the production of this was a bit convoluted with people taking their names off credits and a release direct to DVD – which is surprising because surely there was a theatrical market with this, the same people who go watch Epic Movie, etc? Maybe they figured the problem was it’s not so much like those films as Kentucky Fried Movie – a bunch of sketches grouped together with a thin story about the corporatisation of news (David Zucker was an ep on this). Maybe another problem was this film has genuinely funny moments – the Britney like singer whose hits include ‘Take it from Behind’, Steven Seagal as ‘Cockpuncher’, the ability-challenged athletes. I didn’t recognise any of the main cast, but there are cameos from Seagal, Meredith Baxter Birney, and Michael Bolton. On the down side some jokes are repeated far too often (Cockpuncher wears out it’s welcome in particular) and there’s a dud climax involving Arab terrorists. It’s not as brilliant as the newspaper but there are definitely several laugh out loud moments.