I imagine that someone in Hollywood looked at a calendar and noticed that it’s been a few decades since they used one of their standard templates, the one that involves putting modern comedians in a prehistoric setting. Maybe it’s because they overused it in the late 70s/early 80s, with diminishing results: Life of Brian, Caveman, History of the World Part 1, Wholly Moses.

And so we have Year One, starring Jack Black, Michael Cena, and a lot of people who you’ve seen in Judd Apatow movies. Apatow produced this, which I will point to in the future as proof that I don’t automatically like everything Apatow touches. It was directed—and here’s the key—by Harold Ramis, who was with Second City for a spell back in the 70s and made enough famous friends there to guarantee himself a long career.

As far as I’m concerned, Ramis has directed exactly one good movie: Groundhog Day. Sure, his name is on a lot of hits, but they’re all movies that got by on the strength of their casts. Uwe Boll could have directed Caddyshack and Analyze This without hurting them much.

I’m going to have to apologize for this next remark in advance, but Year One was written by one Gene Stupnitsky—and it looks like it was written by a Stupnitsky.

I suspect Ramis thought he could get away once again with coasting on the public appetite to see his stars. But Black’s limited schtick wore out its welcome somewhere before the second reel of Nacho Libre, and Cena is too bland not to have to depend on strong material.

You could tell in advance that Hollywood had no faith in it because theaters, which tend to cram summer movies onto as many screens as they can get away with, are mostly running this on a single screen. Crowds, in other words, are not expected to be a problem.

Here’s how bad it is: all of the funniest stuff in the movie is in the trailer. And there’s nothing funny in the trailer, which you can see below.

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