I considered skipping this.  I am not much of a fan of Will Farrell comedies.  They all are pretty much repetitive and unfunny.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is, unfortunately, not an exception.

Lars (Will Farrell) and Sigrit (Rachel McAdams) are childhood friends, who grew up together in Iceland with one dream:  to win the Eurovision Song Contest.

Forget the fact that Will Farrell looks 15 years older than Rachel McAdams, despite the characters supposedly being the same age, and how there is a ridiculous conspiracy theory part of the story to prevent Iceland from winning the contest, this movie does not know what it is supposed to be.  There are some scenes that are played totally for comedy but also some scenes that are played straight out of Pitch Perfect.  It this meant to be a satire of these types of music contests or are they celebrating them?

There were some good parts to the film.  Dan Stevens is great as the Russian competitor Alexander Lemtov.  He is easily the best part, standing out every moment he gets on screen.  Rachel McAdams is always good.

Some of the music is fun too.

Other than that… not much here.

The movie is over two hours long and absolutely does not need to be.  This is at least 25 minutes too long.  The extra time is not used effectively.

Pierce Brosnan’s character, Lars’ father, is poorly constructed and makes a total flip at a point in the narrative that makes no sense at all.  Brosnan is always charming, but this character has no redeeming value.

As a Netflix original, I’ve seen worse.  There are a few moments of fun.  Of course, there are also boat explosions, Icelandic elves, shots at America tourists, insane driving, and an oversized hamster wheel.  So much idiocy and not enough laughs from it.  If you are a fan of Will Farrell, you’ll probably like this because the framework of the film is basically the same.

2.4 stars