5.5/10

Director and star of the movie Seth Macfarlane returns to the silver screen with the anticipated follow up to his 2011 smash hit, Ted. The most surprising thing about A Million Ways to Die in the West is the fact that it’s not a very funny movie. It has it’s cheap laughs, but my biggest problem with Macfarlane’s comedy has always been that his jokes are too drawn out…..FOR WAY TOO LONG. Macfarlane stars as Albert, a sheephearder living in the wild west of Arizona in 1898. Macfarlane is dumped by his girlfriend, Louise (Amanda Seyfried), but falls head over heels for new girl, Anna (Charlize Theron). The problem? Anna has a husband who is the most famous gunslinger in the west, Clinch (Liam Neeson). As i said before, jokes feel drawn out for way too long ruining some legitimately good laughs. The kind of fast paced talking smart man schtick with jokes also doesn’t mix well with the visual slop usually seen in Adam Sandler movies. In this one, there is a vicious diarrhea scene, fecal matter on a child’s pillow, and even being urinated on the face by a sheep. The biggest sin with the laughs that actually work is the fact that they are rendered powerless by a nearly 2 hour run time. By the time the final 20 minutes hit, these jokes feel overused and even exhausting by this point. Macfarlane himself isn’t the kind of guy we can get behind. The underdog story is a good one to use in a old west setting, but Macfarlane is very unlikable and at times annoying. He is the kind of guy who has commentary for everything going on in the town, but has no desire to change any of it. The more a character complains, the more the viewer will roll their eyes. Thank God for his co-stars though, because there are some good performances to recognize. Liam Neeson is by far the best part of this movie. He plays a villain that doesn’t play for jokes once. Neeson is the best when he is himself, and that is exactly who he plays as Clinch. He is every bit the man you see hunting for his family in the Taken films. Neil Patrick Harris is very charasmatic as the rebound man for Macfarlane’s ex-girlfriend. He has a musical number at the saloon that is about moustaches that will be stuck in your head for days. Harris is cocky, but knows how to always look through the screen at the viewer and wink for a smile out of us. Giovanni Ribisi also hands in a buzzworthy performance as Macfarlane’s best friend, Edward. It’s the little things that Ribisi does that has us chuckling. Things like playing a comedic straight man to Macfarlane’s comedic banter. He brings out the best in every scene that he is in. It’s just unfortunate that there aren’t more of those scenes to go around. There is a beautiful score by Joel Mcneely that really takes you back to westerns like Blazing Saddles and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. He does his magic behind these long shots of beautiful mountains that play to twangy guitars and rusty violins. The setting and wardrobe are very complimentary, so no complaints there. It’s a shame that a movie like this didn’t fully deliver with a trailer that was very well done. I saw this trailer almost every time i went to the movies and was so psyched to see it. It’s not nearly one of the worst movies of the year, but i can’t give a pass to this one. As great as Ted was, A Million Ways to Die in the West will always be known as Macfarlane’s clunker. At times, it tries to be Blazing Saddles with creating the kind of racist and degrading religious jokes that would be taboo 40 years ago, but don’t carry the same weight in a Family Guy society that has already explored that avenue. Saddles was a film that at it’s time was so shocking because it was a white and black male leads that were going nose to nose with slander jabs that didn’t often make it to the big screen. It’s a different age in a different era, and A Million Ways to Die in the West is a long joke about how it sucked to live in the wild west…..A very long joke.