Seth MacFarlane’s personality infuses A Million Ways to Die in the West. As such, the movie is a frustrating mix of brilliant gags and teenage boy humor. A Million Ways to Die in the West, like MacFarlane, desperately wants to be Blazing Saddles that it comes off trying too hard. It’s also 30 minutes too long.
Albert Stark (MacFarlane, pulling triple duty writing and directing) is a new type of settler in the West: the nerd erudite sheep herder. Albert lives a comfortable life with girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried) and his best friend Edward (Giovanni Ribisi), who is waiting to consummate with his hooker girlfriend Ruth (Sarah Silverman). Albert’s life it turned upside down very quickly though: Louise dumps him for a mustache twirling villain (Neil Patrick Harris), and fastest draw in the west Clinch (Liam Neeson, apparently the Irish accent throws his victims off?) arrives in Big Stump with his wife Anna (Charlize Theron). As Albert, a terrible shot, gets drawn into a gunfight with these bad guys, he enlists Anna’s help, drawing the two of them together.
A Million Ways to Die in the West is two hours long, inexcusably. There are plenty of easy cuts here that MacFarlane doesn’t want to make due to upsetting his friends. The Sarah Silverman/Giovanni Ribisi story is one joke repeated ad nauseam. The characters never evolve and are barely connected to the main story. They would have been better killed off in the middle of the story fitting the movie’s title. There is an Indian excursion that delays the main stand-off by 15 minutes for an extended (albeit, kinda funny) trip sequence. MacFarlane’s biggest failing is getting sucked into side stories for a gag in favor of a tighter script.
In addition, many of the gag’s MacFarlane chooses end in a fart/poop/phallic joke. These can be funny used sparingly, but repeatedly used come off as lazy. Sadly, MacFarlane doesn’t dive deep enough into the well of assumptions about living in the Old West. The jokes about smileless pictures, bar fighting, gun showdowns, doctors’ irrational methods, and especially the contradictions in religion are clever and insightful, only to be undercut by a fart death. With a few more passes through the script, A Million Ways to Die in the West could have approached Blazing Saddles for a new generation; instead, it is just MacFarlane fan service.
Part of the blame is with MacFarlane himself. As Ted, MacFarlane can leave it up to CGI to create a complicated character for himself. As Albert, MacFarlane is requisitely nice and self-assured, but brings nothing else to the table. Too bad, because Charlize Theron almost rescues the story by herself. Relishing in a chance to be funny (like on Arrested Development) Theron’s Anna is sweet, completely charming, and exudes a movie star charisma that MacFarlane lacks. A Million Ways to Die in the West is at its best when Theron is onscreen. Neil Patrick Harris literally gets to play a mustache-twirling villain, and gets some of the big laughs in the movie. Sarah Silverman, Giovanni Ribisi, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried are wasted here. MacFarlane does squeeze lots of cameos in here, the two best involving other films set in the Old West (one spoiled in the trailer, the other right at the end).
Subversive movies can be fun. Princess Bride and Blazing Saddles prove that. A Million Ways to Die in the West thinks it is more subversive than it actually is. Maybe the Old West really is a fool’s errand at this point, or maybe it’s because MacFarlane cannot grow facial hair like every other pioneer, but A Million Ways to Die in the West misses more often than it hits. Maybe it would have been better had MacFarlane CGI’ed himself.