The Ten

Scott Hardie: “It was ok.”

Wow. It's rare that a movie shifts this rapidly between hilarious and awful. In these ten raunchy skits inspired by the ten commandments, there are four or five that left me gasping for air from laughing so hard, and another three or four that were at least clever. But the interstitial segments where host Paul Rudd would rather bicker with his wife than introduce the next story are just painfully bad, and the ending gives way to a terrible group song that rehashes the plot of each short film in lyrics for some reason, ending the whole production on a bad note. If these elements were trimmed in favor of a focus on the ten skits, they'd really have something here.

This reminded me of the underappreciated The Onion Movie, in that its sense of humor derives from the logical extension of an absurd premise -- "well, then what would happen?" Plus, seeing serious actors like Winona Ryder and Liev Schrieber debase themselves for a laugh is pretty twisted. This movie is a delight if you have the patience to groan through the host segments.

− December 22, 2012 • more by Scott • log in or create an account to reply