Flash Review: A Million Ways To Die In The West [2014]

3stars

I braced for the worst… and it never came. I had all but given up hope after the ghastly preview for Seth MacFarlane’s latest surfaced, but surprisingly, no, the best bits weren’t in the trailer and there are actually clever jokes and funny gags (few, but there are) amongst the juvenile jokes and scatological humor. MacFarlane, writer/director/star of AMWTDITW, is not the ideal leading man (I still prefer him as a singer), but he’s carried through by the incredibly charismatic Charlize Theron. I can’t believe there’s a movie where Neil Patrick Harris takes a dump in a hat and I’m not telling people to avoid it, but I actually was very much entertained by the whole crazy ordeal, with its pop culture references, celebrity cameos and anachronistic dialog. There are a million better films than this one, but there are also a million worse.