Netflix Original From Comedy Legend Serves Up Bowl Of Laughter
When I first heard that Jerry Seinfeld was writing and directing a movie about Pop-Tarts called Unfrosted, I had to see what it was all about. In fact, I watched Unfrosted within 10 hours of its Netflix premiere because I was more excited about it than I care to admit. As a lifelong fan of Seinfeld, but not so much Jerry Seinfeld’s stand-up comedy, I figured Unfrosted would lead to one of two possible outcomes: generation-defining comedy, or total flop. Unfortunately, the latter came true.
Let me explain.
Unfrosted Fails To Deliver A Compelling Story
Stand-up comedians are 100 percent committed to “the bit,” and in the context of a one-man show in front of a live audience, the bit is all you need to chase after. In the context of a feature-length film, there needs to be substance that carries the bit to a meaningful place. In the case of Unfrosted, like many other films written and directed by stand-up comedians (Bill Burr’s Old Dads comes to mind), the storytelling is shoved into the passenger seat while the bit grabs the steering wheel and drives the premise straight into a brick wall.
Plenty Of Talent
The plot of Unfrosted has promise, and the film has great production value. Don’t even get me started on the number of familiar faces (Amy Schumer, Melissa McCarthy, Hugh Grant, and Peter Dinklage, to name a few) that make their way in and out of this historical fiction about the ongoing rivalry between Kellog’s and Post during the great breakfast wars of the 1960s. But if I wanted to name-drop everybody, there wouldn’t be room for an actual review.
Bill Burr Outshines Everyone
Since I already mentioned Bill Burr, I have to point out that he steals the show with his brief appearance as President John F. Kennedy, who is about to have an orgy in the Oval Office after Jim Gaffigan’s Edsel Kellog III voices his concerns about the rogue milkmen who want to kill Jerry Seinfeld’s Bob Cabana for trying to invent a snack that would render cereal, and by extension, milk, obsolete.
Nonsensical Plot Lines
Aside from the menacing milkmen plot in Unfrosted, which I enjoyed quite a bit, the rest of the film comes off as a bunch of comedians riffing in the writers room in order to punch up a script that hasn’t yet been completed. Though there are clear story arcs that could have been explored more substantially (the striking cereal mascots, for example), Unfrosted suffers from the “setup and punchline after setup and punchline” treatment.
While I appreciate the jokes about how the invention of high-fructose corn syrup will revolutionize food manufacturing as we know it and how college only cost $200 a year in the 1960s, these jokes would have worked better at a comedy club because they’re just non-sequiturs that remind me of the breakaway gags found in Family Guy.
Stream Or Skip?
REVIEW SCORE
Without Larry David’s knack for fleshing out Jerry Seinfeld’s bits for the sake of telling an engaging story, Unfrosted’s humor is as stale as an abandoned and long-forgotten Pop-Tart. In an attempt to come up with a pithy line that sums up Unfrosted, I’ve landed on “the shtick doesn’t stick” because there needs to be more than just jokes– something that Larry David understands but Jerry Seinfeld apparently doesn’t. If you were to watch this movie for its rapid-fire delivery of boomer humor, you’d have a good time, but don’t expect anything more than punchlines.
You can stream Unfrosted on Netflix if you want to see what all the hype is about. But if I had to weigh in, you’re better off just queuing up some reruns of Seinfeld instead.
