When I first read about this film in Entertainment weekly probably last November or so, I remember reading that it was going to be edgy and very likely offensive to many religious types. I honestly could not have found Year One to be more ‘tame.’ There were plenty of opportunities to get creative with biblical situations and even question faith in humorous ways. The scene with Paul Rudd and David Cross as Cain and Able was absolutely juvenile and elementary. In fact, I found most of the reenactments of biblical events to be simple line readings and pathetic staging as one might see in a Sunday school passion play.

The real opportunities for the film to be a smart daring or even a deadpan existential comedy (maybe if Bill Murray was in this delivering his style would have been much better) were barely approached. I recall a scene inside “the Holy of Holies” where Cera’s character brings up the possibility of there not being a God. There is an exchange one or two words about it and then it was almost as if the writer’s said “Eh… that’s enough,” and then they placed a “WTF?” beat change in the script and then it goes back to their friendship discussion. The only real instance I saw of making a dare was when Cera was talking with Platt’s character about asking who can go into the “Holy of Holies” and Platt’s character keeps trying to justify the room, a great commentary on religion. This was the only smart and daring scene. Why couldn’t the rest of the film been like this?

If you ask me, Ramis took the easy way out and made a bogus journey film where he could have used the concept to doing something… and with all this film was beside poop, sex, and circumcision jokes- I really would have taken anything else.