Review of The Ten (2007) by Jonathan B — 15 Nov 2008

In short, disappointing. Considering the giant cast of typically amusing actors, and also that this movie comes from comedy great David Wain, I expected something more consistently off the rails and brilliantly stupid.

The finished result got a steady stream of small chuckles, and there's nothing exactly bad about the movie, but it just didn't quite work for me. I think the problem is partly with the format of short vignettes.

You grow attached enough to the funnier bits (Rob Corddry and Ken Marino in prison, Liev Shreiber as an interesting sort of dad, Paul Rudd's in-between segment "hosting"), but they're often over as soon as they begin.

And then you're stuck for ten minutes with something that doesn't quite work. You can get away with that in television sketch comedy, but it's deadly to a feature. As somebody who usually loves Wain's absurdist touches, I can honestly say that it just didn't take off the way his stuff usually does.