Almost all of Will Ferrell's movies, but especially Talladega Nights, a stupid movie about stupid people doing stupid things according to a stupid script. It's one of two movies I've ever walked out on (the other being Splice, which is just gross). Stranger Than Fiction is the only good movie with Will Ferrell in a starring roll.
But that’s the point of Talladega Nights, no? It’s meant to be stupid, silly, and absurd. It’s not a drama, it’s a comedy about race car drivers.
Like if that’s your opinion, fine, im not trying to change your mind. But walking out on a comedy cause you thought it was too stupid is like closing a book because it had too many words.
IMO good comedy is more than stupid people acting silly, that's an incredibly reductive view of the genre. Comedy should be clever and play to more than just the basest impulses. Even a comedy about stupid people can be smartly written. An example brought up in this thread is Zoolander. It's silly and absurd, but it's also smart, even though the characters are stupid. Talladega Nights is just stupid.
Mane I thought you were gonna say Office Space or like a West Anderson film as a “smart” comedy, not Zoolander lol. I wouldn’t necessarily call that high brow compared to Talladega Nights, but I haven’t seen it in quite some time so could be misremembering. I get what you’re saying though- a lot of the Will Ferrell comedies use really stupid visual laughs (or dead obvious lines) instead of anything that would require thinking a lil.
Office space is also good, Wes Anderson movies tend to be a little up their own ass for my taste. Zoolander works as a better comparison due to the intelligence level of the characters being about the same as Talladega Nights while the quality of the writing is much higher.
The only Will Ferrell movie I'll watch again is Anchorman. Because yeah, in most cases the humor in a Will Ferrell movie is just screaming inappropriate things.
I've got a similar problem with Ben Stiller. He is by far the worst part of Night in the Museum. We get a bunch of cool and funny stuff happening only to have it slam to a halt so we can have some "Excuse me, Mister sir, but you, shouldn't um." May god damn Ben Stiller to work in an obscure plumbing fittings retailer followed by retirement in obscurity.
Ben Stiller wrote, directed, and starred in it. He's good when he's not doing mid-tier family movies (although I remember him being great in Heavyweights). Similarly, Tropic Thunder is a brilliant movie that he wrote, directed, and starred in.
IMO he's really good when he's allowed creative control, which he wasn't for any of the Night at the Museum movies.