If ever there was someone in love with the smell of their own rectangular, jam-filled farts, it would be Jerry Seinfeld. The billionaire comedian, whose feature directorial debut (yes, really) landed on Netflix this past Friday without screening for critics, seems to have a penchant for making things just because he can. Bee Movie (2007), a bizarre, animated film about a honeybee who has an interspecies romance with a human florist and sues real-life actor Ray Liotta, has become an enduring internet meme in the years since its release. But whatever inexplicable charm Seinfeld was able to pull from such a premise, he’s had no such luck with Unfrosted. By the time the credits roll on this interminable 93-minute Kellogg’s ad, over a montage of his celebrity cast dancing unenthusiastically to an original theme song by Meghan Trainor and Jimmy Fallon, you’ll wish he’d simply invited his rogue’s gallery of ghoulish cameos out for a coffee in one of his 43 porches instead.
At least in concept, Unfrosted is meant as a broad farce, poking fun at Hollywood’s burgeoning trend of making movies about products through the construction of an elaborate fake origin story for Kellogg’s popular processed breakfast snack. It’s also a satire of early ‘60s popular culture, and presumably a love letter to the signs and signifiers of Seinfeld’s youth (all well and good, though the decade’s less enjoyable aspects are reduced to tossed-off gags – “Vietnam? Seems like a great idea!” a character exclaims at one point). Though barely acting, Seinfeld plays Bob Cabana, the righthand man of Kellogg’s CEO Edsel Kellogg III (Jim Gaffigan), who is in the midst of a heated corporate rivalry with Post CEO Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer). Both companies are racing to produce a shelf-stable, fruit-filled pastry product that, as Bob puts it, would “ensure happy childhoods for millions of American kids.” To achieve this herculean task, Bob recruits estranged collaborator Donna Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy), and a slew of random cameos, including the likes of Jack LaLanne (James Marsden), Steve Schwinn (Jack McBrayer) and Chef Boy Ardee (Bobby Moynihan), ensue.
It’s difficult to summarize the plot of Unfrosted because, mostly, there isn’t one. There’s no sense of stakes, since Seinfeld can’t be bothered to imbue his characters with any relatable motivation – Bob’s only stated desire is to resurface his lawn with newer grass. The worst it gets for our characters is a gang of ruthless milkmen, led by a committed Christian Slater, who at one point forces Bob to sprint through a farmhouse while being farted on by cows. “As we all know, in the beginning, farmers milked cows for fun” Gaffigan delivers earnestly, in perhaps the film’s only funny joke. The result is smug and lifeless, relying on a litany of stars to embarrass themselves with broad caricatures of ostensibly famous product mascots. At best, it’s a dull parade of references à la Ready Player One, but in truth, you’d probably get more enjoyment out of watching an hour-and-a-half playthrough of VR Chat. What if the Quaker CEO actually dressed like that? What if Marjorie Post held a meeting of cereal magnates in the style of The Godfather? Seinfeld’s comedic instincts reveal themselves as hopelessly out-of-date, and barely above the level of a mid-2000s spoof movie.
In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Seinfeld has courted some controversy over his complaints that the “extreme left” is killing comedy, a perplexing complaint to lodge when you’re writing jokes this toothless and bereft of meaning. Seinfeld’s most provocative idea is transforming his movie’s climax into a dire spoof of the January 6th insurrection, as the disillusioned and Shakespearian Tony the Tiger actor, Thurl Ravenscroft (Hugh Grant, far better than he needs to be), leads fellow mascots on a siege of the Kellogg’s HQ in order to stop the product’s FDA certification. Like everything else in Unfrosted, this meaningless gag is undercut by a complete lack of commitment to tone, style or purpose, and the arrogant privilege inherent in Seinfeld referring to the event at all. Yes, the world is burning, but here’s a feature-length $14.2 million SNL sketch about a pop tart to haunt your Netflix algorithm. It’s pop culture cannibalism so meaningless that the calories barely register. Thank goodness the “woke left” didn’t get to this one.
Photo courtesy of Netflix
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