"Year One" may not be as revolutionary as the invention of fire or the wheel, but neither is it the knuckle-dragging shaggy caveman comedy it appears to be from ad art that emphasizes the silly appeal of Jack Black and Michael Cera in Flintstones drag.

Columbia Pictures

Stone age pals Zed (Jack Black, right) and Oh (Michael Cera) must be stoned to death, says the evil Cain (David Cross, bottom) in "Year One."

Year One

• Get showtimes
• Play Trailer
• Official Web site

Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, brief strong language and comic violence

Length: 100 minutes

Released: June 19, 2009 Nationwide

Score: 2.0

Cast: Jack Black, Michael Cera, Olivia Wilde, David Cross, Hank Azaria

Director: Harold Ramis
Producer: Judd Apatow, Clayton Townsend
Writer: Harold Ramis, Gene Stupnitsky, Lee Eisenberg
Genre: Comedy
Distributor: Sony Pictures

Showtimes for all movies »

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

More Beifuss on Movies

• Film Review: 'Precious' delivers shock with message
• Film Review: Inspirational 'Blind Side' tackles gritty issues
• Moviegoers have lots to choose from during holiday season

Share and Enjoy [?]

Yes, director Harold Ramis delivers jokes about bear scat, chest hair and the invention of French kissing, but the obligatory gross-out moments function as camouflage for what proves to be a surprisingly trenchant critique of the human penchant for violence, greed, deceit, hubris and, especially, religious superstition.

As exiled cave pals Zed (Black) and Oh (Cera) wander from their primitive village through a series of increasingly advanced and maladjusted "civilizations," the film becomes not just a satire of such sanctimonious old Hollywood biblical epics as "The Ten Commandments" and "The Bible" but

an Old Testament corollary to "Monty Python's Life of Brian." If "Year One" dodges the controversy that dogged the Python project, it may be because the movie fits neatly into Jewish intellectual tradition, which encourages the profound questioning of moral and religious issues (not to mention the Jewish tradition of Mel Brooks flatulence jokes). The holier-than-thou observers outraged over the Python troupe's Jesus jibes may not care so much when the targets are Abraham (played here by Hank Azaria) and Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, the über-nerd from "Superbad").

Scripted by Ramis and the team of Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (co-producers of NBC's "The Office"), "Year One" sometimes plays like the funniest Woody Allen movie in years, with Cera's nervous and virginal tribal "gatherer" a role that the young Allen easily could have essayed. Black, meanwhile, is a blustery but incompetent "hunter" who has the hots for a cavegirl named Maya (June Diane Raphael), while Cera's naive, softspoken Oh nurses a crush on the winsome Eema (Juno Temple).

Booted from the stick-and-dung huts of their village after Zed eats a forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (it has "sort of a knowledgy taste," he observes), Zed and Oh become witnesses to history's first murder when they encounter Cain (scene-stealing David Cross), arguing with Abel (an uncredited Paul Rudd, one of several actors borrowed from the stable of Judd Apatow, who co-produced the film with Ramis). Fleeing on a sluggish ox cart, the two friends go on to barely escape circumcision from the knife of Abraham ("Trust me, it's gonna catch on," the patriarch claims). They also experience slavery, the pleasures of Sodom and Gomorrah and the perils of Roman despotism (Oh catches the eye of a burly and girly high priest, played by Oliver Platt). All the while, the increasingly "knowledgy" Zed becomes convinced he is some sort of "Chosen One," and when the downtrodden masses agree, Ramis' message seems obvious: Dogma is for troglodytes.

Most popularly recognized for his role as Dr. Egon Spengler in "Ghostbusters," the undervalued (by critics) Ramis is beloved by frat boys of all ages for directing "Caddyshack"; he also helmed -- with his typical craftsman-like efficiency -- "Groundhog Day" and 2005's "The Ice Harvest," a witty crime drama that is one of the sturdiest movies of the past decade.

"Year One" could have been little more than a sketch comedy, but Ramis draws on his Hebrew School roots as well as the precedent of Mel Brooks' "History of the World: Part 1" to produce something unexpectedly relevant in a world beset by fundamentalist-inspired violence and religious warfare: an amiable farce with a fierce moral center. In the context of a commercial film culture in which most stories are rigged to justify killing or to placate viewers with the notion that they can achieve anything if they only "believe," "Year One" emerges as the highbrow lowbrow movie of the year.

-- John Beifuss: 529-2394