Unfrosted Film Review: Unambitious Stroodle Flick Fails to Accomplish Its Low Expectations

Jerry Seinfeld will always have his significant contributions to stand-up comedy, and rightfully so. Is it dated? Sure. But it’s absolutely historic. That kind of observational humor, and that cadence had never been seen before the time that he was there. It’s a shame that with all that iconicism, he’s never been able to make anything good.

That has never been more the case than with this movie here, a movie that actively insults the intelligence of the audience. It was convoluted somehow, despite having no semblance of a plot. Its jokes were haphazard and didn’t seem to have a point. Basically, it relied entirely on the idea that making a movie about pop tarts would be funny. It isn’t that funny. How could it ever be that funny.

The film starts with a down-on-his-luck kid in a sixties like diner, who runs in on Jerry Seinfeld while discussing the origin of the prominent toaster snack. There are few things in this film that work, and one of them I dare say is the children. They’re very cute, and it’s funny to see a child scowl and act like an adult. I’m not going to pretend it’s deeper than that, because it’s not. They capture the genuine nature a child has when they’re doing something that makes no sense. They act like YOU’RE the one who doesn’t understand, that they’ve lived a good eight years and they know everything there is to know. It’s probably my time as a kindergarten teacher, but seeing that energy captured makes me smile. This is also seen later in the film with two kids that like to eat snacks out of a dumpster. These three kids are probably the best performers in the movie, with the exception of a cameo performance here or there.

Speaking of cameos, this was a cameo movie, it was a movie about and dedicated to cameos. Without cameos, it would not be a movie, it would probably be a tax write-off. There are so many scenes that aren’t set up with humor, more so that they are set up with a half-engaged pop that comes from saying “Hey! I know that guy. He’s…” and you snap your fingers until you look him up on IMDB. Some of these cameos were better than others, and you can tell that some of them wanted to try. Bill Burr tried. Hugh Grant tried. Peter Dinklage tried. Were they good? Compared to everyone else they were welcome. Compared to normal movies I’m not so sure.

So the film is the story of Pop Tart as told by Jerry Seinfeld to this random kid he meets in a diner. Jerry and Kellogg are at the top of their game, they basically own the cereal business. They get a sinking suspicion though, that trouble is afoot. Amy Schumer and the rest of Post (The other cereal company) have stolen their research and are planning to build a revolutionary new product; a pastry you can put in a toaster. Once the Kellogg team finds out, it’s a race to see who can put the best product on the shelves the fastest.

Now, this is only thirty minutes of plot in an hour and a half runtime. What can they do for another hour? Well, they can go around and do nothing for an hour. Most of the time is spent circumventing the basic plot, and using it as an excuse for building whatever kind of skit they want to do next. Now, this can actually be done in a comedy if it’s handled right. If the skits are good, and they blend together in a way that elevates the end of the film, then I can see it working. Here it’s just clear they’re not sure what to do with the rest of the script, and the skits themselves have the depth of a bad SNL episode. It’s one of those comedies where nothing the characters do actually means anything, so it’s impossible to get invested in any of the decisions they make. It’s the primary reason why skits like these can work in short-form comedy, but they struggle to adapt in a long-form medium. The movie doesn’t even respect itself, so as an audience member, how can I respect it?

At this point, I’m ready to say that Jerry wasn’t the reason Seinfeld (The show) was successful, not by a million years. He was properly utilized, and he worked as a relatable main character. After the success of the show though, nothing he could be seen doing was at all relatable. He was rich, and he knew he was rich, and from the looks of it, he thought he deserved to be that rich. He never felt a need to prove anything after that, and I can’t say that I blame him. When you make money like that, you never have to work hard again. It’s hard to run in silk pajamas, so the saying goes. But the material is what it is: He’s never made anything on film worth looking twice at.

Seinfeld doesn’t make any effort to be someone he’s not. There’s absolutely no acting to be seen here. I can appreciate that in some comedies where the comedian’s personality is closer to the character, but here, it could’ve used some dedication. This Pop Tart creation was someone’s livelihood, and funny enough, it actually did matter and it actually did take a lot of work to get this to shelves. Seinfeld’s character would’ve been overwhelmed by stress and probably an absolute mess. That’s what’s funny to me that someone would care so much and put so much time and effort into something that when you zoom out means very little. When they add the meta element, like haha this is just a silly Pop Tart, it pulls the rug under what could actually be a funny concept. These things only work if you’re going all the way, and Seinfeld did the equivalent of bunting the ball to get on first base. 

Other performers like Jim Gaffigan and Melissa McCarthy were basically in line with Seinfeld’s performance. They were uninteresting, unambitious, and lacked any semblance of emotion to convey what they were thinking. Gaffigan had a line or two I liked, but his timing as the film went on grew stale. While I can appreciate his talent in standup I’ve never once thought of him as an ambitious performer, so something like this doesn’t particularly surprise me. He does have talent though, so I wish he would put in the work and try sometime. With Melissa Mccarthy, I know she can do better than this. We’re talking about someone with a career of dramatic and comedic success. She’s developed lovable characters and always elevated whatever scene she’s in. Sure, she’s phoned it in before, but not like this. Considering her talent, and the talent of many others that was squashed, I can only point fingers at the director of the project. 

Making a film is truly one of the most difficult things a person can ever do. It takes an enormous effort and so many things have to align that it can feel like a constant state of carrying one too many water bottles for your hands to grasp. This movie argues that it’s actually not that hard. In fact, anyone can make a film if you do it like this. It requires no respect, no care, and no attention to detail. All you need is to have money like Jerry Seinfeld and the film is yours. A movie like this makes me understand how important it is that people become media literate, because shit like this can actually make a person dumber. Jerry Seinfeld has made a film so bad it’s offensive to me. I would give it zero stars if I could.

Rating: ☀