Year One

Two prehistoric hunter-gatherers (Jack Black, Michael Cera) are banished from their tribe, launching them on a picaresque trek through Old Testament history, from Cain and Abel through Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, to Sodom and Gomorrah. Written by Gene Stupnitsky, Lee Eisenberg and director Harold Ramis, the movie’s obvious inspiration is Life of Brian, but it never manages to reach (or even approach) the manic heights of that Monty Python classic. Most of the jokes are pretty lame, but some of them are pretty funny, and Black and Cera make a surprisingly effective team; Black’s explosiveness and Cera’s diffidence complement and temper one another. Ramis plays a doleful Adam, with Hank Azaria (hilarious once again) as a circumcision-happy Abraham and an unbilled Paul Rudd as the ill-fated Abel.