Review of The Onion Movie (2008) by Matt M — 21 Oct 2009

The Onion Movie is mainly a group of skits, working as news stories, commercials, movie spots, etc. Behind the skits there's a working TV news report: The Onion News "The World's Greatest News Source". The Onion News has just been bought out by a global conglomerate who requires the news to plug their movies on the air. News anchor, Norm Archer, thinks this compromises the integrity of the news, and this leads to an interesting, and funny, confrontation at the end of the movie.

The Onion Movie is a really funny movie with a few unfortunate down spots. It does a fairly good job of mixing the politically incorrect (Little Known Racial Stereotypes, Terrorist Training Video, etc.), with satire of celebrities (Melissa Cherry, a Britney Spears knock off who sings songs like: "Take Me From Behind," and lyrics like, "So, let me give you some affection - just below your waist" which are apparently just about friendship because she's a virgin), and satire of society (News report: "The internet went down for three hours this morning, plunging the nation into productivity. The outage, which caused major work startages from New York to California, prevented an estimated 120 million American employees from messing around on the web at work"). Also, there are some funny cameos including a spoof commercial hosted by Michael Bolton for a children's charity organization, but the best is Steven Segal as the Cockpuncher.

While those skits work very well, and the majority of the rest do, some skits fall flat on their face. Skits like the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast spoof and the majority of a skit dealing with teenagers playing D&D are just not funny. Also the plot, while inherently harmless and flimsy, adds quite a few deadspots to the movie taking away from the fun of many of the skits.