This Roku TV film based on the Funny or Die video is about the career of parody singer Weird Al Yankovic (played by Harry Potter/Miracle Workers' Daniel Radcliffe).
I you walk into this not knowing much about Weird Al, I want to make this clear: this is a PARODY film. A few parts are gleaned from slivers of truth, but the majority of this is totally made up.
This turned out to be a consistently funny film with solid script and dialogue from Yankovic and director Eric Appel. What can I say, Yankovic knows parody, and he completely nails the usual plot points found in music biopics.
Only reason I'm not ranking this a little higher is that since the movie's following a formula, parts can be a little too expected. Also, one can't help comparing this to similar elements in the earlier music biopic parody Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox story. (Though let me be clear, I found this to be a better film than Walk Hard.) The opening with the disapproving father (played by Toby Huss, one of those people who's not a household name but's been in a ton of stuff) feels especially similar to WH. Then again, these feelings might be just me, and if you haven't seen WH, this is probably going to be a fresher experience for you.
Radcliffe does a great job in the lead and clearly understood the assignment. As some of his more recent roles have shown, he's got a taste for comedy and outside-the-box roles. Radcliffe doesn't really do an impression of Al (also, all the songs are clearly dubbed by Al and not Radcliffe's voice), but he's not supposed to. Radcliffe's supposed to play a parody of all singers from music biopics who suffer ups and downs, and he plays the role completely straight. Westworld's Evan Rachel Wood does a surprisingly good job as Madonna and really has the character (I mean the very made-up, fictional version of the singer) mapped out. Expect a lot of known names to make cameos in this, usually as famous people from the eighties, and we get a pretty fun bunch of performances out of this. Weird Al himself plays a music exec in this, and he does a darn good job of playing other than his usual personality.
Recommended, this is a well done comedy.
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