One of the Biggest Surprises of the Year
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MOVIE REVIEW
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
TV-14 – 
Genre: Biography, Comedy, Music
Year Released: 2022
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director(s): Eric Appel
Writer(s): Eric Appel, 'Weird Al' Yankovic
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson, Toby Huss, Julianne Nicholson, Quinta Brunson
Where To Watch: Available Exclusively on The Roku Channel on Friday, November 4, 2022. Stream The Roku Channel for FREE on Roku devices, the Web, iOS and Android devices, Amazon Fire TV, and select Samsung TVs. No subscription is required.
RAVING REVIEW: I won’t lie; when I initially saw there was going to be a Weird Al biopic, I was thrilled! Then I noticed Daniel Radcliffe was cast as Al, and my hopes plummeted; I saw a set photo, and my hopes dropped further. Let me tell you; I have never been more wrong for judging a film before watching it!
To say my expectations were low would be an understatement; I have been a diehard Weird Al fan for decades, I’ve seen him in concert three times, and everything pointed to this not meeting my expectations. Twenty minutes in, I was through the roof, happy to know how wrong I was!
First things first, Daniel Radcliffe (HARRY POTTER, SWISS ARMY MAN) is a brilliant actor. I still had so much apprehension about him in this role, and it just didn’t feel right, not to mention looking like a Halloween costume. Radcliffe immediately put all those worries to rest once he “became” Al on screen. I will happily admit this is one of my favorite films of the year; the perfect amount of “weird” makes it an ideal film for this biopic.
I don’t know what I expected, but I know it wasn’t this. Director Eric Appel flips the biopic genre on its head, offering up the opportunity to tell Al’s story in a fun and innovative way. However, I don’t think any of this would’ve been possible without the direct involvement of Weird Al himself. You can feel his fingerprints all over the film, including somewhat of a cameo appearance.
I could write 10,000 words on this instead of just the 400-500 I usually do. I had to make room to comment on the casting of the rest of the film. There were so many “cameos” and fake(?) cameos that made the entirety of the film a constant whose who to watch and enjoy. This may sound odd for a biopic, but I would love to see a sequel! (when you watch it, that may seem even more bizarre, but still!)
In short, if you’re a fan of Weird Al, I think you’ll love this; if you casually know of him and some of his songs, you’ll probably still appreciate this. If you hate him, well… you’re just wrong! The man is a living legend!
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I forgot this came out! I’ve been looking forward to it ever since I seen the trailer!
Comes out tomorrow, and it’s free on the Roku app!
This looks dope! Trying to get my Roku back to see it. #GimmeThatDefJam
-Zach P
Didn’t think I would enjoy this movie but was pleasantly surprised
I love Daniel Radcliffe’s performance in this. I like this mockumentary in itself is a parody to biopic movies in general. Not really surprised that weird Al would make his own biopic into a parody.
Here from Tiktok. I was surprised how good this movie was. I dont know why I would be surprise I am a fan of Weird Al and if you are too I think you’d enjoy this movie. Also if you are a fan of Walk Hard a Dewy Cox story then you will also probably like this film. They acting was great the cameos also came as a nice surprise and very funny. Its even more funny when you know some of the real back story of Weird Al some of the story you think would be a joke like recording in a bathroom was actually true. The jokes come fast the music is funny and its an over all very uniqe twist on the music biopic movies. The only thing that took me out of the movie that I was not a fan of would have to be the Third act. For me the joke just ran too long for me and just got too…. weird.
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