[Blarg]

Just saw Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky and Bobby, on DVD at home. Fell asleep about four times and finally gave up.

This thing reminded me of the bad and typical skits we see on SNL or Mad TV. The ones where an offbeat or outright weird character is set up, and then they try to fill often quite a few minutes on whatever he's doing, but there aren't really any jokes there. Just some awkward situations, maybe some people looking uncomfortable reacting to the weirdo.

This flick didn't hard on the otherworldy weirdness of the main characters, but it didn't develop it into anything funny either. The two leads, for instance, have a catchphrase for their partnership -- "Shake and bake." As the movie's villain notes, it doesn't really mean anything. But it's neither funny that it does or doesn't. It's just filling out "a day in the life of."

If the movie has a killer ending, maybe my evaluation is out of line. But the beginning didn't seem to be moving toward anything at all, and the middle kept on muddling along to nowhere.

It's rare I don't watch a rented movie all the way through no matter how bad -- and I actually kind of like NASCAR racing, and like Ferrell -- but this one seemed so blank and void that I made an exception. If I hadn't seen other Ferrell movies that made me think Ferrell did have talent to step beyond the small screen, I'd take this movie as proof that he didn't.