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Last week I saw both Wayne’s World movies for the first time in 20 years or so. These movies pleasantly surprised me as they hold up really well. They’re both really funny movies even 30 years later. Upon mentioning Wayne’s World a colleague pointed out A Night at the Roxbury to me. A movie that is also based upon a sketch from Saturday Night Live. So I watched it with relatively high expectations.
Outside of the US Saturday Night Live doesn’t exist. Especially in the days before the internet. So movies based upon sketches have to be able to stand on their own feet. Wayne’s World did that with ease. I have seen the Roxbury sketch a couple of times because of the internet so I’m familiar with the joke. Three guys go to a nightclub, nod theirs head rhythmically to the song of What is Love by Haddaway and try to pick up chicks while dancing like maniacs.
And that’s the entire sketch.
While there is something funny to that sketch, it’s never hilarious. But somehow someone decided that this sketch could be the basis of an 83 minute movie starring two of the three characters. Jim Carrey was too expensive at this point in his career.
A good movie would find a hook to justify its running time. The two dim-witted brothers dream of owning their own dance club. So the story could revolve around them actually opening a dance club. The brothers also try to get into the coolest and most exclusive club in town, The Roxbury. So the story could be about that and them having the craziest night of their life. It’s right there in the title.
But the movie does not really follow a decent structure. The first act revolves around them being denied entry and setting up their daily lives working in dad’s cotton flower shop. The second act has them actually getting into The Roxbury and have them pitching ideas about a new nightclub to the owner. They also pick up two golddiggers who mistake them for wealthy guys. The third act is all about one the two brothers getting married against his will.
But what it all boils down to is that A Night at the Roxbury consists of one joke, spun out to 83 minutes. As you can probably guess, that doesn’t work. Especially when the joke isn’t that funny anyway.
The only memorable thing about this movie is the large amount of Eurodance it contains on the soundtrack. That is my youth right there. On there other hand I think that What is Love is heard three or four times in the movie, and that is just a tad too much. I’m pretty sure Whigfield’s Saturday Night isn’t that expensive to license.
Aside from the music and some familiar faces popping up in cameos A Night at the Roxbury has no redeeming factors. On paper this seems that this could be a movie that I would love, but in the end I loathed it.
