A lot of people are familiar with The Onion News. The Onion News is a news service that parodies modern news right down to the Horoscopes. Spoofing modern news with spoof news filled with humor and scatological references, The Onion News has been offering a scathing satire on the modern news experience for years. In 2003, they opted to make a movie filled with the same satire of the modern world you'd find in the newspapers. Apparently, though, due to poor test screenings the movie was shelved and finally released on DVD in 2008 rather than theatrically. So how does it stack up? 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.
The Onion Movie is definitely worth a watch though. While not as funny as I hoped it was funnier than I expected. Naturally, for those of you who know of The Onion, know to expect nudity and cursing, so this is not a movie to watch with your kids. Check it out, and hope you enjoy!
