The Onion Movie Raw and Uncut

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This just in...The Onion invades DVD! Based on the wildly popular newspaper hailed by The New Yorker as â??the funniest publication in the United States,â? The Onion Movie brings you uncensored, uninhibited, UNRATED news and views from around the world. In a stunning development, when Onion News anchorman Norm Archer (Len Cariou) is asked to compromise his journalistic integrity to please a new corporate sponsor, he doesnâ??t just get mad, he gets...angry. Taking at pop stars, prisoners, peace talks and, of course, high-testosterone action films, The Onion Movie delivers hard-hitting headlinesâ?"and side-splitting laughs! .com ---- Shelved since 2003 then released straight to DVD, the feature-length Onion Movie is based on the satirical nationwide newspaper The Onion, which works better in print than on celluloid. That said, hardcore Onion fans will appreciate this effort to enliven text with filmed comedic sketches that strongly resemble Saturday Night Live news and National Lampoon. Directors Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire translate what would normally read as sarcastic headlines into slapstick skits starring three news reporters, Norm Archer (Len Cariou), Larissa Laskin (Dana Dobbs), and Scott Klace (Kip Kendall), reporting on idiotic events either live or in the studio. The newsreel opens, for example, with a report from Archer on the dangers of "neck belts" in automobiles, that have lately been decapitating drivers. Spoofs on everyone and everything, from slutty teen stars, racial stereotyping, the handicapped, to recruitment officials turned peaceful by marijuana, add plenty of characteristically perverse and iffy Onion humor to this odd film. The Onion Movie relies loosely on a plot in which Norm Archer, devoted anchorman, protests a toy penguin interrupting his screen time in the name of advertising an upcoming film, Cockpuncher, that the network’s corporate sponsor, Global Tetrahedron, has funded. This facetious action film featuring Steven Seagal, looks a little too life-like after Norm takes measures to fight the power. At an hour and a half, news skits interrupted by fake commercials and Archer’s fits of rage feel played out, though skit-to-skit, the news broadcasts are quite hilarious, making the film an overall winner if you’re in the mood for mockery. --Trinie Dalton