John Farley (Seann William Scott), whose self-help book is riding high atop the bestsellers charts, returns to his hometown to discover that his mother Beverly (Susan Sarandon) is about to marry Jasper Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton), his old junior high P.E. coach. Just about everyone in town thinks Woodcock--soon to be the recipient of a prestigious education award--is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but all of the people who suffered through his class know he’s evil. John does everything within his power to expose Woodcock for what he really is and stop his mother from making the worst mistake of her life.

CRITIQUE

On the whole 2007 was a great year for movies, but it wasn’t a good year for comedies. For every Hot Fuzz or Superbad there were a dozen piles of cinematic excrement along the lines of Delta Farce, Balls of Fury, or I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. I’ll give you three guesses as to which category Mr. Woodcock falls into, but you’ll only need one.

Don’t let the cast (who really, really, really should know better) fool you--this is strictly direct-to-video level material, the kind of stuff the programmers at Comedy Central trot out when they’re sure no one is going to be watching. I’m not kidding; give this movie two years and it’ll be following House Party 3 on Saturday afternoons.

Mr. Woodcock suffers from two major flaws. The first is a serious lack of laughs, the second an overabundance of annoying characters. I think I laughed twice during the movie’s 88 minutes (believe me when I say it seems three or four times that length), the first time at what was meant to be a joke, the second at what probably wasn’t. What I’m certain was a joke involves a character played by Ethan Suplee, another of Woodcock’s former victims. The joke itself--a caught-on-videotape bit in which Suplee animatedly describes a fantasy in which his face meets Sarandon’s still ample breasts--isn’t funny, but Suplee’s delivery sells it. (The filmmakers quite naturally almost ruin it by repeating the bit ad nauseum over the course of ninety seconds.)

My second burst of laughter was brought on by a third act bit in which Scott’s character appears on Tyra Banks’s talk show. In introducing Farley to the audience, Banks mentions how much her life was changed by reading his book, and the thought of Banks actually reading anything that might contain polysyllabic words had me rolling. (Before anyone gets upset over that remark, I’d just like to say that I’m sure Banks is a lovely person. But given the sort of questions she poses to her guests, particularly the leading political figures of the day, it’s a good thing she has her looks.)

As for the characters, the movie goes the route so many modern comedies take and gives us absolutely no one to like. (I mentioned Hot Fuzz and Superbad above primarily so I could once again thank Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, and Judd Apatow and his pals for more often than not populating their movies with the sort of people you wouldn’t mind knowing.) Farley is a whiney putz, Woodcock is a sociopath, and Beverly is an idiot. I can’t imagine anyone giving a damn what happens to any of these morons. Fifteen minutes in and I was ready to punch all three of them in the teeth, a feeling that only intensified as the movie headed toward its obvious resolution.

If you’re thinking that the movie’s initial seventy-five minutes of shouting, inflicting of pain, and lowbrow antics eventually gives way to a final ten minutes of everyone realizing it’s all been one big misunderstanding and coming together as one big happy family, you’re right. I don’t know about anybody else, but I’d be willing to give my right eye for a comedy actually willing to stick to the courage of its convictions. Have the people who make these things never even heard of Billy Wilder?

THE VIDEO

The good outweighs the bad in the 2.35:1/1080p transfer, but for some reason the bad is what I really remember. Colors are generally subdued, with golds, yellows, and sepia tones (the movie is set in a small Midwestern town) dominating the palette; black levels are generally solid.

On the downside, there’s a softness that infects many scenes, sapping clarity and depth and dragging the quality of the video down to a borderline standard-def level. (The movie reportedly went through an extensive series of reshoots in the weeks leading up to its theatrical release, and I wonder if perhaps the uneven quality of the photography is a result of this.)

THE AUDIO

The sound design is largely front-heavy, but that didn’t stop New Line from outfitting this disc with a DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 7.1 track (available in English only). Dialogue, which makes up at least three-fourths of the mix, sounds good. The surrounds are used to open up the score (which seems to consist primarily of repurposed bits from the theme from The Odd Couple) and add space to a couple of crowd scenes.

Problem is, the surround information tends to collapse into the rear center channel, leaving the other surround channels out in the cold, which sounds quite unnatural. Bass action is relegated to the music. No other audio tracks are included; English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The Making of Mr. Woodcock (15 minutes) is yet another this-movie-is-going-to-be-hilarious/I-love-working-with-these-actors EPK promo piece. Also, you won’t believe some of the comments Thornton makes in his interview; they’re funnier than almost anything in the movie.

The deleted Scenes (13 minutes) are actually just extended scenes, meaning you get more of the same sort of unfunny stuff that did make the final cut.

P.E. Trauma Tales (12 minutes) is, believe it or not, a collection of interviews in which the cast talk about their own childhood P.E. experiences.

Closing out the extras is the movie’s theatrical trailer.

FINAL THOUGHT

I didn’t think you could take Billy Bob Thornton throwing basketballs at fat kids and make it unfunny, but I was wrong.