Jerry Seinfeld has made possibly the most ridiculous movie since The incredibly strange creatures that stopped living and became confused zombiesnamely, without freezing (now on Netflix), a fake Pop-Tarts biopic. (Is “biopic” even the right term for a movie that details the false origins of inanimate foods?) Anyone who’s seen Seinfeld’s monologue in the last quarter century knows that it has a long, detailed A Bit of Pop- Tarts (and anyone who’s seen it more than once has probably heard it more than once) and, well, that’s a movie now. Hurrah? Recently, Seinfeld caused a stir when he said some vaguely silly Boomer things about “wokeness,” but it only serves to put more attention on this movie, which featured approximately 300 funny people ranging from the merely famous to the generation-spanning. heavyweights (although the latter is just Seinfeld himself), most notably Jim Gaffigan, but only because he’s the comedian who makes all the dumb food jokes. So the movie has some star power going for it, in addition to being a probably accidental parody of the brand’s birth movies (see: those movies about Beanie Babies, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and the like) that clogged our globe ocular. holes in 2023. Only that could make without freezing It’s worth checking out, the key word being “could”.
UNFROZEN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: BATTLE CREEK, MICHIGAN. EARLY 60’s. The grain wars are at their peak. In one corner, Kellogg’s, like Rice Krispies and Corn Flakes. On the other, Post, as in Alpha Bits and (shudder) Grape Nuts. Two corporate headquarters, one across from the other. We meet Bob Cabana (Seinfeld), a top brass at Kellogg’s who reports directly to the boss, Edsel Kellogg III (Gaffigan). They clean up at the annual Bowl and Spoon Awards, including the coveted trophy for easiest-to-open bag of wax, PLEASE LAUGH! – But his rival Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer) is baffled about it. Not even annoying. You are welcome. What the hell does she have cooking there? Maybe an idea for a fruit-filled pie based on a recipe she stole from Kellogg’s? Well, shit. That seems to be all.
And that seems to be it for the plot too, as the rest of the movie is about the race to make what the movie is about, while trying not to make the movie too much like a blatant commercial. for various Kellogg’s products. (Note: It is not successful. More on this in a minute.) To give Post the edge, Bob recruits the best of the best to formulate a baking product: NASA scientist Donna Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) leads a team. including chef Boyardee (Bobby Moynihan), bicycle boy Schwinn (Jack McBrayer), the inventor of sea monkeys (Thomas Lennon), fitness guru Jack LaLanne (James Marsden) and a few other people whose products were featured Featured in comics advertisements of the era. (Wait for that scorching joke about x-ray spex!) This is just the beginning of the celebrity parade, and I’ll refrain from spoiling things so you’ll be disappointed by unfettered visits and cameos.
I might mention that Hugh Grant appears as an actor who stoops to being the guy in the Tony the Tiger suit, and Sarah Cooper plays a Kellogg’s employee whose only reason for existing is to make us say, “Hey, is it?” Isn’t that Sarah Cooper, the funny woman who posted Trump’s lip-sync videos on Twitter during the pandemic? Meanwhile, the competition between Marjorie Post and the guys at Kellogg’s heats up like something you plug into the wall and Place the Bread to Make It Hot and Crispy. Tony the Tiger leads a pet strike, two child characters appear to live in several dumpsters, Bob and Edsel use every angle of corporate espionage to sabotage their rivals’ work, there are recurring jokes about “butt rashes,” al beginning The gags function as sets for later gags, we almost drown in silly mid-century nostalgia and are we exhausted by all this already? Yes a bit.
What movies will it remind you of?: At least Flamin’ Hot showed some heart amid the somewhat controversial debate about its great veracity.
Performance worth watching: McCarthy provides most of the film’s few laughs, proving once again, after many painful mediocrities like the starling and thunder force – who has the ability to find a few flakes of gold in a truck full of lead.
Memorable dialogue: Sample exchange which is a good example of the type of comedy we have here:
Bob: Did you get my note about the frogman prize inside? Some children are eating them.
Edsel: They’re frogmen. They will find the way out.
Sex and skin: Pop-Tarts don’t have icing, so technically that leaves them naked.
Our opinion: Let’s get this out of the way right now: without freezingThe only comment on “the wokes” is the throwaway line: “You can’t say ‘hobo’ anymore.” They prefer ‘bum’, which to me is more of an observation about the evolution of language in the popular lexicon. I mean, can you BELIEVE that people use different words for things than they did five, ten, or even 50 years ago? WHAT’S THE DEAL with that?
Apologies for the bullshit, and I promise I won’t indulge again from now on, including sharply avoiding “soggy cereal” or “this Pop-Tart spent too much time in the toaster” metaphors. . I will say that the “hobo” part is one of the best jokes here, among the roughly 900 that make up the script, from Seinfeld and his writing team of Andy Robin, Barry Marder and Spike Feresten. They reconstruct one joke after another and land very few of them. Seinfeld seems to be aiming for… something? What could it be? Satire? Nostalgia? An unusual parody? I’m not sure. He might not be aiming for anything, but as we know very well, he’s done it before, and much, much better.
There’s a story here, a corporate competition that has a parallel nod to the Cold War and the Space Race, but that bit of inspiration dies with a sigh when without freezing He shows a marked inability to concentrate on anything, as if he ate too much sugary you-know-what and spent the rest of the morning squirming like a drugged chihuahua. The period details seem good and expensive, the sets and costumes are full of color, thus showing a certain sense of vision; Perhaps the goal is to appeal to the child within recent suburban retirees and remember the era with equal parts warmth and typically Seinfeldian nihilism. No, as they say, there is nothing wrong with that, but this almost becomes Gag Cut: The Movie as he talks, he jokes and jokes, in increasingly irritating ways, entangling potentially funny ideas (the Milk Mafia; a South American sugar cartel) inside too many stupid parts (a runaway monster that is a hybrid of a colony of sea monkeys and a ravioli) and quick celebrity cameos that seem designed to distract us from the fact that this movie serves no purpose. Considering the continued too-easy commentary on the unhealthiness of highly sugary pseudo-foods for children, even the film’s existence as a cynical exercise in product placement is nonsense.
As always, comedy is subjective. Jokes that could hit home are just as likely to feel like they’re landing. in mine: I can already hear the apologists saying that they laughed at without freezing more that they didn’t, which justifies their time, and that’s fair enough. But that’s a long way of saying that your mileage can vary, and wildly so. Seinfeld The comedy has aged well, but that may be Larry David’s influence, as Seinfeld’s stand-up and overall sensibility are getting weaker. It’s strange how a staple of Seinfeld’s stand-up is translated so dispassionately into this film; He’s been doing that for so long that you’d think it would be something he really cares about. about. But there’s very little intention here beyond being a parade of big, dumb jokes that are too dumb. There’s also the inevitable feeling that a movie isn’t the best place for these jokes, that Seinfeld lazily rounded up bits that worked well on stage and called them good.
Our call: Apologies in advance: without freezing It stirs fruitlessly. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
