WOOOOOO!!!

Despite my deep fear of going to see anything loosely related to NASCAR given the typical clientele, I finally bit the bullet and decided to roll out to one of Conway's high-class theatres and see Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. It had tons of hype, a little crass humor, Will Ferrell, his smokin' hot wife, and digs at dumb southerners and NASCAR ... which may or may not be interchangeable – I'll leave that for you to decide.

You can't hardly go wrong with anything featuring Will Ferrell, so there was no way this one could fall flat on its face. But did it live up to expectations?

In short – no. That's not to say it was a bad movie because it was not. It was just that, given the intense promotion and the gut-cramping hilarious previews, you went in almost expecting it to be one of the five funniest movies of all time. And it had its moments that left you in tears and nearly urine. It's just too bad that the vast majority of those were the moments shown in all the commercials.

The dinner scene where Ricky Bobby says grace and prays to Jesus in a handful of stages (baby Jesus, tiny Jesus, 8-lb., 6-oz. little tiny baby Jesus, newborn Jesus still with his umbilical cord attached ... alright, I made that one up) was superb. Any scene where his kids acted crude was enjoyable. Him sprinting around the track was good, although it didn't run much longer than the segment on the commercials. We got Oprah Winfrey, Allah, Tom Cruise and so on, but I was hoping it would carry on. Maybe something along the lines HELP ME MARSHALL APPLEWHITE!! or HELP ME LOUIS FARRAKHAN!!, but no sir.

There weren't enough good "moments", and while you'll come away quoting several lines (although, again, most all from commercial) you'll also come away feeling like Ricky Bobby himself could've been more over-the-top and that the villian could've been more ridiculous as well.

I'm no movie critic and will not try to wow you with any in-depth analysis, but I feel the movie missed in that there was entirely too much effort made to put a real semblance of storyline in it. There should've been more obscene, outlandish humor. They definitely underplayed the part of the story where he thought he was paralyzed. That could have been an hour by itself and been comedy. It's Will Ferrell, you let him shine.

I had been told going in that it was funnier than Anchorman. I had also been told going in that it wasn't very funny. I agree with neither of those assessments. It is definitely funny, but not of Anchorman proportions.

Overall, I would give it a solid 7/10.

And if you don't chew Big Red gum, then f*** you.