Perhaps the most annoying thing about “A Million Ways to Die in the West” is how close it is from being a really great oddball comedy like those we used to get from the Zucker-Abraham-Zucker trio. I don’t hate Seth McFarlane the way so many other people do. I like Family Guy. I love their Star War parodies. I even got a knack for American Dad and The Cleveland Show. And I really enjoyed “Ted” quite a lot (review incoming in the next few weeks). But “A Million Ways to Die in the West” is poorly misguided. The comedy could’ve worked all the time had it maintained more focus, but as it is it’s only intermittently funny like a broken signal light. The acting is all over the place, being Seth McFarlane himself the worst one. He’s a damn good voice actor but the moment he’s in front of the camera all I wanted was to punch him. Even the slapstick is also uneven, which sucks because it’s not much different from an episode of Family Guy, or from what we saw on “Ted”, but while those often have a structure that opens for cutaway jokes this movie is constructed solely out of cutaway jokes. And the same way a cake just made of frosting becomes inedible after two bites, this movie becomes unwatchable after two hours, with only some funny jokes and a battery of cameos to hold it up.
“A Million Ways to Die in the West” is a frustrating oddball comedy that just stands out for being the one thing Seth McFarlane created that not even fans of Seth McFarlane could defend.
Wait. What’d I say???