(2.5 out of 5 stars)

Jack Black and Michael Cera star as cavemen in Harold Ramis’ latest comedy. The movie plays out much more like a series of Saturday Night Live skits rather than a movie with a complete storyline. The movie chooses lowbrow comedy as its weapon to keep the audience laughing but misses the mark on more than one occasion.

Ramis chooses to have the characters speak perfect English and use some current music in its transition scenes which makes it feel like a play on stage in front of an audience of elementary school students. It made me think how A Knight’s Tale bravely chose to add classic rock music into the 18^th or 19^th century. Tale pulled it off whereas Year One did not.

Part of the problem was the continual act by Black and Cera. When Jack Black plays his immature self, it gets old real quick. It worked in School of Rock because it had redeeming value; here it did not. Cera is always the bean pole loser who is shy of the girls and gets them in the end each time having sex and being surprised that he just did it. The shtick is old; it is not funny; please move on.

There are some laughs, but in the end, the boring characters and lack of plot did not make the stories of the book of Genesis any funnier. The movie actually made it a bit boring. Tons of potential but lack of execution leaves this one back in the dark ages. 

Suggested similar recommendations: 10,000 BC and Monty Python and the Holy Grail