This is a silly concept film starring Jack Black and Michael Cera as two cavemen in supposedly pre historic times who wander off and then end up in biblical times first encountering Cain and Abel and ending up in the town of Sodom where they try to free people from their own tribe from slavery.

So Year One is a romp that goes from the stone age with hunter & gatherers to farmer & herders to wheeled ox pulled wagons to the time of Abraham and its also a comedy with Jack Black doing his usual stretched out shtick.

The film is directed by Harold Ramis who is also a credited co-writer but its been a come down from the heady days of Ghostbusters. Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria and Xander Berkeley are the wasted actors in this lame film that provides few laughs and will leave you open mouthed as to how poor it is.

I will start with the good things about Year One. It does look good, the costume and set design actually look as though that some care has gone into them, while the music is at least okay and it was kind of fun spotting the biblical references. However, the story is very repetitive and predictable for my tastes, and there is a weak script and hit and miss sight gags. The direction is lacking too, the pacing is too quick so there's little breathing space and I wasn't taken with the two leads either. Jack Black's performance is lacking a lot in subtlety because he is on autopilot for a vast majority of the movie, so it is left to Michael Cera to deliver the laughs. Unfortunately Cera doesn't manage it, he underplays a little too much and doesn't know what to do with what he's got. Overall, disappointing, it did start off alright actually but the fun isn't stretched over to make a decent enough film. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) are a couple of bumbling primitive hunter-gatherers. They are banished from the tribe after Zed eats a forbidden fruit. They meet up with Cain (David Cross) who kills Abel. Then they are sold into slavery like the rest of their tribe.

It's a bit of broad comedy from director Harold Ramis. He's taken a page out of Mel Brooks' playbook. Jack Black is very good as the braggart slacker bumbling fool. The problem is that he's not that nice to Michael Cera. We need more bromance. That would help the chemistry.

There are some great laughs. It's very scattered, but that's the nature of the beast. There's nothing wrong with scatter-shot comedy as long as they hit the mark every once in awhile. It just needs better chemistry from Black and Cera.