Sgt. Steve (2004 Review)

It takes a lot for me to laugh. I'm stubborn. But Sgt. Steve had me in tears. I'd had a bad day. And right from the 'plank of wood' prologue, the genius of Fester Freelance had cleared up the black cloud. It's a rare thing for comedies to really gain a laugh a minute, and the films that have in my mind have been mostly slapstick or gross-out. But Fester has made a movie that is consistently funny, time after time. The moment it stopped, I watched it again. It was that good.
Again, Sgt. Steve succeeds in it's well considered and sometimes less than mature humour, and the little things help drive the movie. Again, the plank of wood monologue (with Fester carefully choosing his targets, Richard Simmons and Brendan Fraser deserve to be laughed at), the Saved By The Bell recordings, Michael Keaton's Introduction, the Sodomy commercial and JC's hilariously delivered NO, Steven Seagal's cheap bastard speech to Willy Wonka, prompty ambushing the Oompa Loompas and some absolutely gut-churningly funny characters, from the selection of bizarre characters on The Jason Show, to the always watchable psychotics of the assassin, to the always brilliant appearances of Mr. Wee-Wee, who often fills in the narrative gaps with ease, and having the audience genuinely excited to have the character on the screen.
True, often black screen replaces any real scenery, but Sgt. Steve is not designed to woo you with time-wasting visuals. Comedy value would be lost if this approach had been taken into account in any case, and in all fairness most of Fester's animations are not without merit, fluidity where needed, and camera movement where appropriate.
Sgt. Steve is a stroke of comic genius, on par with anything and everything I've seen that's ever made me cack my pants in an embarrassing frenzy of giggles and guffaws before beginning to cough and promptly flemming into the sink. This is a film you watch, and you know before its really begun you'll be watching it again. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Damn you for leaving Osama's Heroes unfinished Fester. you can expect me to appeal for its completion.