Two nights before signing the Declaration of Independence, George Washington launched a celebratory rage where America’s Founding Father allegedly rang a bar bill equivalent to $ 17,253. Our nation started out with a hangover, a fact too factual to be included in “America: The Motion Picture” (streaming on Netflix), a scorching and aggressively inept cartoon that rocks the bird – both to screen and thematically – towards a strain of patriotism that insists that the slave owners who founded this country were sober heroes whose vision for democracy remains unwavering, my brother. “That’s why we make the rules, baby!” Bellows Samuel Adams (voiced by Jason Mantzoukas) after a barrel stand. Here, being a privileged white man in America is intoxicating, a truth no less fictitious than watching Paul Revere win a “Fast and Furious” inspired street race that goes “a quarter of a mule at a time”.
This sacrilegious farce, directed by Matt Thompson and written by Dave Callaham, opens with Abraham Lincoln (Will Forte) having his throat ripped by renegade (and werewolf) Benedict Arnold (Andy Samberg). Let’s dodge a description of the flatulence on Lincoln’s deathbed and move on to the plot where Lincoln’s prom date George Washington (Channing Tatum, perfectly himbo-esque) swears revenge on the “fun police”, aka King James (Simon Pegg), who built an airship that will bag the fratty Yanks into submission. What follows is a flashy sendoff of the country’s identity. The eagles cry. “The free bird” moans. Paul Bunyan boxing Big Ben. And in a nod to America’s uninformed history classes, Washington is also stammering its goal of doing “something about taxation?”
The premise to a joke comes with a headache as we see Washington impregnate Martha (Judy Greer) in a cut that features Old Faithful and a hammer smashing a cherry pie. Squint hard, and the first lady’s dynamism and pecs might just be a satire of ideal femininity. Less subtle are the film’s cheeky scams of “Star Wars” and “The Avengers,” and the inclusion of a reinvented Thomas Edison (Olivia Munn), now a Chinese immigrant who exists to roll her eyes. Ultimately, Edison decides the country is worth defending anyway. Is it? The fictitious ending is not certain – and the real ending has yet to be written.
America: the movie
Unclassified. Duration: 1 hour 38 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
