While at the Times-Dispatch I noticed that Daniel Newman reviewed the Tenacious D movie and obviously does not get it:
Kyle Gass is a passable guitarist, but Jack Black’s vocals are desperately inadequate. To compensate for this weakness, he clowns around vocally, turning his singing voice into a joke. And like all the jokes in the film, as we have said, it is not funny.
But even if the music were better and Black could sing (as he did in “High Fidelity”), there is still the problem of their words. Lyricists, they ain’t. Cole Porter could spend weeks perfecting a song, but Black and Gass must write their pieces in less time than it takes to sing them.
How else to explain their rhyming “honesty” with “honestly”? How else to explain the line (to the tune of “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”) “He is going to kick your bleeping bleep/And you know his name is Kyle Gass”?
How else to explain? How about, that’s the freakin’ point?
Tenacious D is not about making the best music in the world. No, it’s about writing a tribute to the best music in the world and mocking the metal genre while paying homage to it, highlighting its worst elements in the best way possible.
I caught this movie while in NYC for CMJ’s convention a few weeks back and I left impressed. I’ve been a D fan for a few years now and wasn’t so sure how the movie would play out, concerned that it’d just rehash the television show and also about Liam Lynch’s ability to carry a full length film given his short work wasn’t too impressive (“Siffle and Ollie” the exception). But they pulled it off. While the movie played off of some elements of the TV show, it was more as a hat tip toward the old fans than a repackaging of old ideas. The music, while not as good as their album, was good and played up the joke.
Pretty much, you have to get it to enjoy it. If you’ve never heard of Tenacious D I highly recomend you check out their album before their movie. If you have heard of them and weren’t too impressed, then save your $8 for something else. Like a decent sense of humor (oh, snap!).
If you’re a fan of the D, you’ll dig the movie.