Movie Review – Unfrosted
Principal Cast : Jerry Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Max Greenfield, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer, Peter Dinklage, Christian Slater, Bill Burr, Dan Levy, James Marsden, jack McBrayer, Bobby Moynihan, Adrian Martinez, Sarah Cooper, Mikey Day, Kyle Mooney, Drew Tarver, Tony Hale, Felix Solis, Maria Bakalova, Dean Norris, Jon Hamm, John Slattery, Kyle Dunnigan.
Synopsis: In 1963 Michigan, business rivals Kellogg’s and Post compete to create a cake that could change breakfast forever.
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An all-star cast and America’s mid-60’s breakfast cereal war might seem like comedy gold on paper (or, not), but in reality this skitterish, mildly amusing “comedy” from legendary stand-up icon Jerry Seinfeld lacks focus, has vast stretches of stupidity, and runs about an hour too long – and the film is a respectable tight ninety. What feels like a protracted SNL sketch stretched out beyond breaking point, Unfrosted’s A-list cameo collection – Bill Burr, Peter Dinklage, and even Mad Men’s Jon Hamm show up in legitimately hilarious moments – never quite comes together like milk and cornflakes, making this sugary-sweet Willy Wonka-esque nightmare all the more baffling.
In the early 1960’s, cereal developer Bob Cabana (Seinfeld) works for the Kellogg’s company for bullish corporate head Ed Kellogg (Jim Gaffigan), and attempts to come up with a brand new kind of breakfast treat before the rival company, Post – led by viperous owner Marjorie (Amy Schumer) – develops it first. Recruiting former Kellogg’s wunderkind designer Donna “Stan” Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy), Bob uses all manner of subterfuge to throw Post’s machinations off the scent until eventually, the development of the cereal known as “pop-tart” is birthed deep in a Kellogg’s laboratory, leading to a climactic war for the shelves of the American consumer and the crown of the country’s biggest cereal behemoth.
Unfrosted is the kind of project that might have seemed like a solid idea at the time it was pitched to “throw actual money at literal shit sticking to a wall” streamer Netflix, but this film comes with a fair share of unpalatable lumps. It’s an at-times asinine comedy “romp” that befuddles and confuses the viewer with a weird tonal mix of slapstick, Python-esque turn of phrase, and non-sequiturs and meta-references out the whazoo. There’s a coherent thought here somewhere, although it’s lost in glitzy production values and the staggering, swollen all-star cast that often takes the viewer out of the story. With a “oh look, it’s that guy” conveyor belt of Hollywood comedy and non-comedy talent (although, I admit that casting Bill Burr as a pretty decently essayed take on pre-assassination JFK was a stroke of genius) to propel this lightweight story well beyond conventional limits, and having the title star (who also co-writes, directs, and co-produces) become some whimsical sugar-frosted breakfast genius a la Roald Dahl’s eponymous Wonka alongside Melissa McCarthy doing her best shithouse Doctor Who impression, and and Unfrosted quickly comes apart at the seams.
I get it, I really do – this parody take on Americana breakfast time and the clamour to control the taste buds of a generation of kids in middle-America is ripe for the tasting. I’m just not sure that Seinfeld’s shrieking, often mawkishly dumb take on this is worth its weight in Tommy The Tiger shit. For one, the central premise won’t really mean much to kids outside of the United States, and the comedy is too broadly Americanised to sit well with audiences unfamiliar (or uninterested) in the Anchorman-esque delivery and ironic humour. Shoehorning in a cavalcade of Hollywood talent in meaningless, mainly unfunny turns (Hugh Grant riffs on the the January 6th Qanon Shaman at one point, when the company mascots stage a literal insurrection against Kellogg’s in one of the more ludicrously obvious “bits”) and pop-culture references is something best left aside, the cartoonish nature of Seinfeld’s production failing to elevate anything here to little more than sink-plunging cereal mash.
Seinfeld himself approaches this less as a star vehicle and more as an ensemble piece, and to a degree this works in the film’ favour: Seinfeld is a better comic than an actor and he wisely populates his film with credible, and usually talented fellow comics to bulk out this effortful story. Melissa McCarthy approaches mediocrity like she’s born to represent the Razzies, Jim Gaffigan buffoon’s his way into the surly, idiotic frame of one of the Kellogg’s, and Hugh Grant once again reprises his “kooky, offbeat” era from The Gentlemen and Paddington 2 with another snickering, wink-wink turn as the company’s leading mascot, a velvet-tiger named Tommy. None of the avalanche of cameo turns elicits much laughter, and the weird story beats – as indifferently skit-show as they all feel, half-assed jammed alongside one another – never amalgamate to anything worth considering as, you know, “entertainment”.
I guess on some lizard-brain level you could extract some enjoyment with Unfrosted if you don’t look too hard or care about retaining your sanity, and I’m glad everyone on this film got paid at Netflix’ expense, because they sure as shit won’t be turning this into a franchise. It’s a dire, cringeworthy effort in almost every respect, dare I say a (ahem) puff-piece about a literal cornerstone of American culture that is vamped up beyond recognition as even having the vaguest notion of a true story or real events. As much as I hate the grammatic apostrophe in Kellogg’s, I hated this film a lot more.
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