Weird: The Al Yankovic Story - Daniel Radcliffe Brings Us Greetings from 'Planet Al'

By Jim Slotek

Rating: B-plus

Full disclosure: Besides interviewing him a few times, I once wrote for Weird Al Yankovic when he hosted a Canadian rock awards show. I can say with some confidence that, his look and fascination with food lyrics aside, Weird Al is not really all that weird.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, starring Daniel Radcliffe, with Rainn Wilson as Dr. Demento

The fitfully-funny, pop-reference-crammed Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a nice guy’s alternate-universe version of himself, one in which Weird Al (Daniel Radcliffe) is the biggest star in the world, big enough to turn down Live Aid. He has Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood) for a girlfriend (it’s the ‘80s), because she’s desperate for him to spoof one of her songs to boost sales.

Cool kids go to polka parties, the accordion is rad, and… well, you get the picture. In Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, scriptwriter Yankovic is spoofing himself, with the same sense of silliness he brought to, say, the Knack spoof My Balogna.

The movie, which won the Midnight Madness audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival (and debuts on the Roku Channel Friday), certainly has progenitors. The musical-biopic spoof Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, with John C. Reilly, is one, up to and including the joyless, angry dad (Toby Huss). The hilarious Nicolas Cage self-takedown The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is another. There’s even a shared plot-point, when a cartel leader – in this case Pablo Escobar (Arturo Castro) - who’s his biggest fan, is determined to get him to attend his birthday party by any means necessary.

An extension of a 2010 Funny or Die “trailer,” there is an extended-sketch feel to Weird by its last act, but enough of the random jokes hit to make up for it. Easily the most surreal scene in the movie is a pool party, in which Dr. Demento (Rainn Wilson) unveils his new protégé to a crowd of ‘80s influencers that includes Andy Warhol (Conan O'Brien), Tiny Tim (Demitri Martin), Wolfman Jack (Jack Black), Divine (Nina West) and Pee-wee Herman (The Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone).

The upside-down-ness of this alternative universe is kind of fun. Here, Weird Al tries to break out of his song-spoof straitjacket by writing an original song called Eat It. Unfortunately, that jerk Michael Jackson decides to spoof it by recording Beat It. And let’s just say, on Planet Al, there’s a whole other provenance to Amish Paradise.

And who would be more willing to sign on to a movie called Weird than Radcliffe? The erstwhile wizard, whose homegrown lip fuzz seems more “porn ‘stache” than parodist, is having fun. This is his preference these days, the weirder the choice the better. He’s worn demon horns (in Horns), played a farting, floating corpse in Swiss Army Man and a youthful version of the poet Allen Ginsberg (Kill Your Darlings).

Physically, the casting seems like part of the joke. The real Yankovic is more than six feet tall. But Radcliffe throws himself head first into over-the-top substance abuse, gunplay and at least one near-death experience.

And Wood makes a lot out of a little with her turn as a gum-smacking Madonna, wearing her villainy and womanly wiles so close to the surface you could see them from space.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is a platform for comedy as a burlesque of drama, with enough winks, pop references and silliness to keep the premise going. Funny stuff.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. Directed by Eric Appel. Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson. Debuts exclusively on the Roku Channel, Friday, November 4.