Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		0.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star Blu-ray Movie Review

Born to be a dud.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 16, 2012

You’re destined for greatness.

A hayseed hillbilly goes to Hollywood hoping to hop some honeys and hang his hat in the adult hall of fame. Or something along those lines. Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star is drivel of the worst kind, Comedy that's so unfunny that the audience didn't forget to laugh; they're too busy crying over the money they spent and the time they wasted on the movie. It's one thing to make a bad movie -- it happens all the time -- it's another altogether to make something so absolutely devoid of humor, rhythm, purpose, or heart as this. Bucky Larson is so awful it defies description and isn't even worth the effort to try. Its premise isn't terrible, but the execution, however, is. Its characters are incredibly flat, and Bucky's you-know-what isn't the only part of them that requires a microscope to see; they have no heart and no purpose other than to make the actors who play them look silly on the screen and humiliate themselves for a paycheck that couldn't even begin to cover the cost of the shame that will follow them for the rest of their careers. Well, maybe that's a little harsh, since nobody bothered to see the movie in the first place, ergo, only a select few will know the cold, hard truth of just how unimaginably awful this one is.

No comment.

Small town Iowan Bucky Larson (Nick Swarsdon) has just been fired from his job as a grocery bagger. His final customer, to whom he recommended some tasty Doritos, sees in him great potential, an idea that spurs Bucky onward and upward towards...something. To help him get over the blues of losing his job, three of his "friends" invite him over to watch a movie, but it's not just any old movie: it's an adult movie. Bucky's got his trousers down and his wrist loose -- per his friends' instruction -- and he's shocked to see none other than his parents performing in the picture. It's back home with lots of questions that his folks (Edward Hermann and Miriam Flynn) are all too happy to answer. Suddenly, it hits Bucky: if his parents can make it in the adult film industry, why can't he? It's off to Hollywood he goes in search of stardom. Soon after his arrival, he meets a kindly waitress named Kathy (Christina Ricci) who finds him a place to live with her neighbor, the crude Gary (Kevin Nealon). Bucky soon catches the attention of a director named Miles Deep (Don Johnson) who casts Bucky in his films despite his microscopic manhood. Bucky quickly becomes a sensation, much to the chagrin of fellow porn star Dick Shadow (Stephen Dorff). Can Bucky maintain his momentum in the industry and build a meaningful relationship with Kathy? Does anyone care?

Bucky Larson: Born To Be a Star is not sweet when it tries to be sweet, is not dramatic when it tries to be meaningful, and is not funny when it attempts to be funny. It runs dry even when its script tries to mask its shortcomings with gallons of empty humor in scenes so unbelievably dreadful that one wonders how movies have come to this, a specimen so purely obnoxious and vapid that it looks like it was made to be some background movie for Idiocracy that was to be seen in a cut version of the "I'm 'batin!" scene. Truly, that movie's fictitious Oscar-winning Ass would probably be better than this. Then there's Bucky himself, and much like the sort of porn star he is, he has no rhythm and no clue. Worse, the movie is as naive as its character, thinking that just showing its character looking and acting stupid will win over audiences. Sorry, audiences at least want some context. Movies like Dumb and Dumber might not be intelligent, but at least they're unafraid to tell a story that's a little more complex than this, oh, and their actors do "dumb" and "naive" a whole lot better than poor Nick Swarsdon, whose entire schtick is to look goofy, talk with a wholly manufactured accent, offset his small privates with extra-large teeth, and react like a chimpanzee on crack when he sees a woman even partially disrobe. It's a one-trick pony that gets tired really fast, a fact that becomes evident even before Bucky sets off to Hollywood to follow in his parents' footsteps.

Even the secondary characters are empty vessels who appear in the movie because it "needs" more than Bucky running around half naked and looking like a buffoon. Poor Christina Ricci plays a character whose shame stems from when she once dropped soup on a customer. If that's her life's biggest problem, she's got it made. Her problem reflects the movie's primary problem in a nutshell. It assumes that its audience is so lame-brained that it will eat up the most thoughtless of characters and find some emotional undercurrent where one truly does not exist, not to mention its assumption that viewers will find anything of value in the brain dead and unimaginative humor. Ricci's Kathy is meant to be the foil against which the porn star stuff plays, the gal who falls for Bucky's heart rather than his sexual prowess (or lack thereof). Sadly, there are two problems. One, it doesn't resonate because it's so generic and done so poorly, almost out of need rather than as an actual plot point. Two, the characters are so lame to begin with that nobody cares if Bucky finds true romance or only walks away from his time in Hollywood with a closetful of spread-eagle adult video awards trophies. The other actors manage decent performances given the material with which they have to work, even if they're as equally one-dimensional as Bucky, such as a competing porn star who better fits the mold than does the newcomer Iowan but is in every way as ugly and dumb as Bucky, the two separated only by the size of their privates. Kevin Nealon almost earns a few laughs because his character is so absolutely absurd. He's the movie's bright spot, as dim as it may be. And just when it couldn't possibly, no way, ever get any worse, when it's at the point that the audience would rather scoop out its eyeballs and slice off its ears, in trots Pauly Shore for a cameo appearance.

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star may be a truly awful picture, but its 1080p Blu-ray transfer is anything but. This is another first-rate transfer from Sony, and despite the film's poor reception and small box office returns, the studio has taken the time to produce a handsome Blu-ray. The image is extraordinarily bright and vibrant. Colors leap off the screen and appear nicely balanced and natural. Flesh tones only waver under various light sources, and black levels are spot-on accurate. Fine detail is exceptional, and clarity is superb. Clothing textures are so crisp it's almost scary how good they look. Fabrics offer viewers a strong tactile appearance, faces are very well-defined, and general backgrounds, either in small town Iowa or big city California, couldn't look any better. The movie was shot digitally, but it produces no banding, no noise, and it never takes on that flat, glossy look so common to digital. Instead, it almost passes for film. The movie stinks, but this transfer is flawless.

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star features a solid DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack. It offers all of the basics in fine order. Music is punchy and nicely spaced, both across the front and into the surrounds. A good, hefty low end gives it the body necessary to fill out and solidify both score and popular music. The track offers up some stable, but minimal, atmospherics, whether light background sounds in an early scene at Bucky's grocery store, the din of porn star parties, or natural external elements. Dialogue is steady, plays crisply up the middle, and never becomes lost to surrounding elements. This is a simple but effective track that's dominated by dialogue and music, both of which this DTS track handles with expert ease.

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star contains four featurettes.

• Laughter is Contagious (1080p, 5:16): A gag reel that manages to be even less funny than the movie.
• Behind the Teeth (1080p, 11:22): Cast and crew discuss the movie, its cast, and characters.
• Gary: Tough Customer (1080p, 4:19): A look at the comic work of Kevin Nealon.
• Bucky Sparkles (1080p, 2:29): A study of Bucky's orgasms.
• Previews: Additional Sony titles.
• BD-Live.

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star is a truly awful movie that almost makes The Love Guru look good in comparison. End of story. Sony's Blu-ray release of Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star does feature spectacular video and strong audio to go along with a few supplements. Unfortunately, a good A/V quality is no longer enough reason to give a Blu-ray a spin. Skip it.