I'm not sure it's possible to look at Weird without comparing it to Walk Hard, if only because the fundamental joke is the same: a parody of the overly rigid structure of musical biopics. Every scene you'd expect is in both: a trauma-filled childhood full of strained parental relationships, a sudden hit leading to egos and a drug-fueled decline, a comeback that serves as a climax that cements them as a legend.
But where Walk Hard liked to crank the melodrama of its source material to 11 in order to extract comedy, Weird seems to think it's enough to just hit the beats verbatim except it's happening to Weird Al. The result is a movie that can never really escape the shadow of another film that did this same riff better 15 years ago.
That's not to say it isn't funny. The film makes the most of its myriad of cameos, from Lin Manuel Miranda to Patton Oswalt to David Dastmalchian and longtime Al collaborator Emo Philips. And its on-the-nose song origin stories play wonderfully here. They serve as a criticism of the trend to simplify and overexplain song origins in more recent biopics, but they also land because Weird Al tends to write about mundane concepts like food or bus rides. And the unanswered question about what, exactly, his father's factory produces is the best kind of running gag.
But it all still feels subdued and lethargic compared to the energy Weird Al normally brings to his work. A Zucker Brothers movie keeps threatening to break out at any minute, but every time the film comes close it backs away from committing to out-and-out zaniness. Which is a shame, because that's much more a Weird Al vibe: UHF and The Weird Al Show and his music videos all embrace a manic, cartoony world with a bent towards physical comedy. That isn't completely absent here, but it only comes through in restrained spurts.
And ultimately that's what frustrates me about this movie: It can't decide to play it straight or not. Half the time the joke is "What if did the scene from this famous biopic, but it's trivialized because it's Weird Al singing about food?" And then the other half of the time the joke is "What if we did a Zucker Brothers bit here that like 80% lands but mostly just makes you want to rewatch UHF or Airplane or Hot Shots?"
And while I did find plenty to like in this movie, watching a double feature of Walk Hard and UHF seems like a better use of everyone's time.
