Unfrosted

Unfrosted Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Jerry Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, and Amy Schumer.

Director: Jerry Seinfeld

What’s Good: There are some clever gags here and there, and seeing Seinfeld again on screen is excellent.

What’s Bad: The film tries too hard to be funny, and most of its humor is based on making references that feel old and outdated.

Loo Break: The film is relatively short, and yet, it feels redundant at times, so every time Amy Schumer appears on the screen, you can bet you can take a break.

Watch or Not?: This film is a pass in general and only there for those who are really long-life fans of Seinfeld or cereal.

Language: English (with subtitles).

Available On: Netflix

Runtime: 120 Minutes.

User Rating:

At one point in Television, Seinfeld was the most famous comedy in the world, a seat that would later be taken by Friends, but everyone can agree that both shows were titans of their time. Since then, Seinfeld has lived through the show’s fame, and he has done little else on a creative level, but here he comes again with a passion project that deals with creating the pop-tart, one of Kellogg’s most famous breakfast products.

Unfrosted Movie Review: Script Analysis

Comedy will always be quite a subjective topic, as it is most of the entertainment business; what can be funny for some cannot be funny for others, and with Unfrosted, Seinfeld has basically thrown himself as the sole responsible for this film’s existence, and the question of why will arise many times throughout your watching. This is not to say many people will enjoy its whimsical nature, but nevertheless, it is almost factual that the movie is quite a mess from a plot and story level, as it jumps around and tries to sneak jokes every single second without any sort of break.

The script takes what was a very serious competition between cereal companies and transforms it into an absurd story, which is, of course, a way of telling the audience that people maybe shouldn’t take cereal so seriously. However, the movie misses the point that for those people, it was serious, not because it was cereal but because it was their job and passion to make the best product and take their respective companies to a higher level.

The film takes the creation of the pop tart as quite ridiculous and depicts the people involved as a bunch of lunatics. It is all done as a joke, but the jokes about how people saw their jobs and behaved with each other feel outdated. The visual gags are more clever and funny but are a minority, as usual in American comedy films. Seinfeld could have used a bit more situational comedy in this script instead of making so many references to things that are not relevant anymore.

There are also too many characters, which makes the film a bit of a cameo roller-coaster, which can be fun, but when most of these characters end up being irrelevant to the story, you start to wonder why they were there in the first place. Only to stretch the already short runtime? One on top of the many characters making the film feel dispersed, the meta-commentary and the political commentary feel a bit hypocritical coming from someone such as Seinfeld himself.

Unfrosted Movie Review: Star Performance

Seinfeld not only directed the film but also co-wrote the script and stars in the film as Bob Cabana, our protagonist and the leader of the division within Kellogg’s that will move heaven and earth and everything in between to create the pop-tart. Seinfeld is not an actor; he just uses his persona like he used it in his TV series, so it is hard to say if he created a character here. I don’t think he did, but it is nice to see him again on screen for those feeling nostalgia for Seinfeld, the show.

McCarthy is the other significant character in the film, and she does the same we expect from her now. Her character, Donna, is rash, driven, and a troublemaker. McCarthy is fun to watch, but she feels the same as Seinfeld in that she is not acting but using the persona she has created for her on-screen appearances. This is not a movie based on performances but on an idea, and not a very interesting one.