It turns out that even back in the Year One Michael Cera was exclusively cast as a bumbling dork and Jack Black a garish buffoon. Yikes…that means they’ve been typecast for over two millenniums now. Thankfully, they’re both become quite good at their respective roles. Yet not even their solid comedy paring is enough to elevate this biblically themed ‘bromance’ above  recent misfires from the Judd Apatow production canon (here’s looking at you Step Brothers and Drillbit Taylor).

Having previously mastered goofball humour with Caddyshack, Year One‘s director/screenwriter Harold Ramis gets carried away with the primitive theme by almost exclusively resorting to primitive toilet humour. The resulting experience can be likened to repeatedly playing with a Whoopie Cushion for an hour and a half, ultimately making this a year best left forgotten.

It’s a great shame since the combination of Cera and Black works so unexpectedly well. The two deliciously bounce off each other’s distinctly different approach to humour; Black as the loud-mouthed hunter Zed and Cera as his awkward and timid virgin friend Oh.  After eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, Zed decides to make the most of being banished by deciding to embark on a journey through the ancient world, dragging Oh along with him. It goes without saying that,  being an Apatow production, the two are primarily motivated by the thought of getting laid once they reach the corrupt city of  Sodom.

As  Zed and Oh wander aimlessly through the periodically plotted film, they bump into a who’s who of Old Testament characters, including the murderous Cain (David Cross) and his ill-fated brother Abel (Paul Rudd). Yet despite the initial excitement of a mini Arrested Development reunion with Cera and Cross sharing the screen, these biblical in-jokes are hardly worth the diversion. Whilst Cross does fair better than most other “hey, it’s that guy!” cameos from the onslaught of Apatow regulars (Bill Hader and Superbad‘s iconic McLovin included), he too is mistreated by a screenplay that stones subtlety to death with its relentless vulgarity.

The script, which Ramis co-wrote with The Office writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, repeatedly resorts to the kind of toilet humour that sees Jack Black literally go as far as licking the contents of the bowl for laughs. Occasionally, the film does strike a witty balance between disgusting and funny, such as when an enslaved Cera is forced rub oil on the fur coat Oliver Platt calls his chest. Also, the ever reliable Hank Azaria earns some solid laughs as the foreskin-chopping Abraham.  But more often than not, this is a film abundant with gags that will simply have you gagging.

It ultimately makes for an unfortunate case of what could have been, as Year One is essentially the offspring of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and Monty Python’s the Life of Brian. It could have been great, had it not been repeatedly dropped on its head as a child. The resulting brain damage  sees this potentially hilarious biblical comedy turn into one giant, tiresome fart joke.

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