MACGRUBER

The setup's the same as those of SNL's MacGruber sketches: The mulleted, Miata-driving MacGyver MacGruber (Will Forte) tries to save the world, usually by piecing together half-assed gadgets with random crap that's near at hand, only to discover he's fantastically incompetent and that his half-assed gadgets never, ever work. I'm pretty sure MacGruber's cowriter/director, Jorma Taccone-who, along with Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer, is part of the Lonely Island comedy group that's responsible for what little punch SNL still has-pulled a fast one on somebody at Universal, 'cause this doesn't feel like a studio picture. MacGruber's all over the place, shameless and willing to do whatever it can for a laugh-unlike the relatively safe SNL sketches on which it's based, this film's a hard-R, with welcome doses of profanity and blood and the most intentionally awkward sex scene since those puppets pooped on each other in Team America: World Police. (ERIK HENRIKSEN)