Tenacious D in ‘The Pick of Destiny’

Jack Black
Kyle Gass
Directed by: Liam Lynch


A few years ago, a relatively unknown actor put out a comedy/musical cd with a friend of his that quickly picked up a cult following. Since its release there have been rumblings of a companion film, a film that (by the admission of its stars) would blow the doors off of rock. Well, the fan anticipated film has finally arrived.

Jack Black and Kyle Gass, the duo that make up the band Tenacious D, take the jump from cult band to the movie screen tripping over the same out of left field humor that made their cd such a hit. Jack Black plays a misunderstood teenager who has a vision from Dio and travels to Hollywood to meet his destiny, to play in a band. He meets K.G. (Kyle Gass) and they form the (not so) supergroup Tenacious D. When they have to win a local open mic contest to pay the rent, they learn of "the pick of destiny" and set out on an epic quest to find it.

Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny is a musical comedy that only has a coherent storyline insomuch as Dude, Where's My Car and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle do. These films normally rest on the number of hit or miss jokes. Unfortunately, the music is not on par with the duo's debut cd, something most fans will probably compare the movie to. The jokes fall flat more times than not and are mostly dependant on in-jokes and multiple variations on the same penis joke. While the caricature cameos with Ben Stiller, Meatloaf, and Tim Robbins are a laugh, and there are more than a few pretty unique jokes that give you a few belly laughs; themovie comes across like a bad carbon copy of their cd. It iscomplete with songs thatdon't seem to be fleshed very well and are best suited for a five second fart joke. Most of the jokesare retreads of the cd andwere much funnier when you had to use you imagination. New jokes seem thrown together and are completely forgettable. Fans of the original cd may be interested in the film only to seeJB and Cage on screen, but they should probably save their money and wait for a rental on dvd. While both Kyle and Jack were probably given free reign to put together a cd that really wasn’t expected to turn into the phenomenon it is, I think someone should have sat down with the guys and explained to them that while talking about how great you are while making jokes about your penis is funny, people need a little more than that to warrant spending $8. The guys seemed to have either forgotten it, or didn’t really understand why fans bought their CD.
 

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