When I was in eighth or ninth grade, I remember doing a cover of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Yoda,” a parody of The Kinks’ “Lola,” at some Christmas event. I was thumping along on my Höfner violin bass to the song and getting a chuckle out of some of the changed lyrics. This was my indoctrination into the world of “Weird Al” Yankovic, an artist whom I have not bothered to listen to since. However, even I’ll admit that a biopic about him sounded intriguing, paired with the overwhelmingly-positive reviews out of TIFF, but the Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a mess and I’m really left scratching my head vis-á-vis the positive reactions. Outside of maybe one or two chuckles, Weird falls flat and is a parody that wasn’t worth making. Sure, the concept is meta, but as clever as the idea is to have the master of music parodies do a parody of the music biopic genre, it’s much like an SNL sketch that got the 7-8 minute slot when it really deserved a 3-4 minute slot, at best. 

As noted, Weird tells the story of “Weird Al” (Daniel Radcliffe) as he journeys through the music industry. It’s a satire of the genre, so much of the story is overblown or completely fictionalized, but the general genre tropes are in place Al’s parents are both unsupportive of his musical endeavors. His father (played by Toby Huss) tells him that he should join his work at the factory and give up on music while his mother (played by Julianne Nicholson) tells him to “not do what he loves,” or something to that effect. 

But Al is actually talented (believe it or not!), and after sneaking out to go to a polka party — perhaps the dorkiest thing you could be peer-pressured into — he gets his first chance to show off his accordion skills without having to fear his father overhearing. He gets caught, and years later, with the help of his college dormmates, he records his first single, “My Bologna” in a bathroom and becomes an overnight success. From there, he meets Dr. Demento (played by Rainn Wilson) who is this geek’s carney, or Colonel Tom Parker. Along the way, he rises to success and shares an interesting connection with Madonna (played by Evan Rachel Wood). 

“Life is like a parody of your favorite song. Just when you think you know all the words, you don’t know anything,” warns the narrator of the film (I have to imagine it’s Radcliffe but you never know). That opening line tries to set the stage for what’s the come. As you can likely imagine, much of the story beats are greatly exaggerated. And I’m all for a clever satire, but maybe telling a young Al not to do what he loves is a bit too on the nose. For goodness sake, the film opens with Al being rushed into a hospital in what appears to be a near-death experience.

And the big difference between writing parody songs and a parody of a whole film genre is that with a song, you have the entire template in place. There’s a chord progression, lyrics and musical composition all in place by the time the real “Weird Al” ever has the idea to parody it. He could very well just write new words that fit the rhyme scheme and then sing it over the original track sans vocals should he so choose. With a film, sure, there are some beats and clichés found in the music biopic genre, but it’s not quite as simple as filming new scenes over those found in the likes of Bohemian Rhapsody, Walk the Line, etc. There has to be more thought in how to adapt those into a film aside from simply doing the complete juxtaposition of what the tropes have set up in an effort for zany humor because it’s not that the humor is too smart for audiences; it’s that the humor is reliant on the viewer having seen the countless music biopics in recent years and being able to recognize what they’re riffing on. Even then, is it really all that funny to simply do the juxtaposition of what the viewer expects in a certain scene you’ve seen before?

Also, unlike other parody films such as Superhero Movie or the countless entries in the Scary Movie franchise, Weird is boxed into a corner that is so tight and there’s simply very little wiggle room. Again, you can make fun of tropes or a generic plotline, but you’re very limited when talking about musical biopics. Even if you want to expand it and say Weird parodies biopics as a whole, there’s only so much you can do because they’re already so cookie-cutter and generic whereas in the Scary Movie films, they have a whole genre of films full of various franchises and themes to pull from. You could likely count dozens of different movies riffed on in each Scary Movie, and that’s because horror is a much vaster genre than the biopic.

The writing also exposes the limitations of the real “Weird Al,” who teamed with director Eric Appel to scribe the film. I’m sure that in off-the-record discussions, the idea of subverting the genre norms such as Al rejecting Led Zeppelin as his opening act and Al becoming an overnight sensation just seconds after his roommate tells him that it’s impossible to do so are funny. In a feature film, however, it just comes off as inside jokes between friends that overestimate how funny they are to the outside world. Sure, I chuckled here and there — mostly to the joke making John Deacon of Queen seem irrelevant — but I know that if I said “reach for the pylon,” my one friend who was there for the joke would be the only one who would burst out in laughter whereas the rest of you would simply look on in confusion. 

On top of what’s presented in the film, the film simply doesn’t look that good. I’m not trying to crap on Roku’s parade, but many of the costumes — especially the record deal execs (which look like Kinks cosplay — look fake. The film also has a weird gloss a la Hallmark movies and the only thing separating it from the likes of a Redbox Original Film are the cameos. And let me tell you, there are a lot of cameos. It doesn’t quite produce the dopamine rush that the MCU’s cameos do, but I guarantee that if your dad grew up in the 1970s, they’d have a field day sifting through the landmine that is the house party scene (one of the few times the film embraces its quirkiness for the better).

But even as a feature film, it plays like a 45-minute episode of TV. In all honesty, I can’t say I’ve ever used the Roku channel, so I have no idea if it has ads, but the film abruptly cuts to black on three or four occasions much like any episode of TV would on Netflix since there aren’t ads on the streamer (yet). Perhaps those are there to make room for the ads, but as a feature film, it plays strangely and definitely is enough to take you out of the film.

I don’t want to crap on the production too much because the budget is rumored to be $8 million. Even still, if that is the case — and I mean this in the kindest way possible — it shows. I can’t imagine the cameos were cheap, factor in getting a lead actor like Radcliffe, I am left wondering how much was left for the production itself. Again, the film itself looks too glossy and the film feels quite limited in terms of its locations and scope. It’s sort of like how Judy felt small-scale but that film was led by a stronger performance and more powerful concert scenes.

Radcliffe is pretty good in his role, and I don’t want to disregard it. He’s the only actor that is bearable for the entirety of their screen time. I’m not a big enough fan of “Weird Al” to be able to tell you if Radcliffe really nailed him down to his dialect and mannerisms, nor do I care, but aside from some really iffy autotune in some of the music performances, he’s rather good in the lead role and brings some heart to it. I think I still prefer him as the ridiculously hammy villain a la his role in The Lost City, but this will suffice.

Simply put, Weird is essentially a near-two-hour SNL sketch. What’s SNL’s biggest issue in recent years? Their tendency to delegate a clever sketch to a timeslot that is far too long to keep the bit up. Weird runs out of mileage before it can ever really get in tune.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story had its world premiere at TIFF on September 8 and will premiere on the Roku Channel on November 4.