Tenacious D's first feature-length film, ""Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny,"" pulls out all the cinematic stops one might expect from a translation from skit to silver screen—cameos, special effects, sensational rocking and more stoner references than you can shake your bong at. But the comedic duo/band holds back in an unexpected way.
Jack Black and Kyle Gass' HBO show never skimped on the weird, the disturbing or the depraved, but the film leaves audiences decidedly un-shocked. The loss of this element makes the movie feel watered down and tailored to fit the mainstream.
The movie centers on the origins of Tenacious D, but quickly develops into a quest for a mystical guitar pick which gives its bearer godly guitar-playing ability. Through this plot, Gass and Black seem to use ""The Pick of Destiny"" as a way to validate their self-assigned moniker, ""the greatest band in the world.""
Because of this, the movie focuses largely on the art of rocking and overlooks the humor that made the pair famous. As comedic musicians, Tenacious D show themselves to be truly inspired, but their attempts at a cappella comedy are most definitely the opposite. Scatological jokes, drug humor and tired clichAcs proliferate the movie and bridge the musical numbers in mundane style.
The opening scene of the movie is one of the more successful ""music videos,"" featuring Jack Black as a boy rocker, stifled by a religious upbringing. Meat Loaf plays the boy's disapproving father and contributes some vocals in a rare on-screen performance. Ronnie James Dio of Black Sabbath also adds to the song, encouraging the boy to travel to Hollywood in search of rock stardom.
As an adult, Black finds his counterpart and eventually convinces a pretentious Gass to teach him how to be a star. They learn from a burned-out Ben Stiller that a single guitar pick carved from a broken fang of Satan himself led to the success of classic rock bands Van Halen and AC/DC, among others. As it turns out, the supernatural strummer rests quietly in the Rock and Roll Museum, ripe for the picking.
Tenacious D's quest for the pick leads them on a ridiculous path of mediocre songs and more tired gags. Among the worst are a daydream concert A la Spinal Tap, a lengthy and out-of-place mushroom trip scene and, inexplicably, a sorority party.
Perhaps the worst of all is a painfully bad reprise of the infamous Blues Brothers car-chase scene leading up to the D's first opportunity to prove their virtuosity at their familiar night club's open-mic night.
Once there, they find themselves in a rock-off with the Prince of Darkness, played by Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighter Dave Grohl. This scene offers some redeeming quality, but not enough to warrant even a matinee ticket price.
The film could have been something great, but with the high density of lame weed jokes and scenes taken from both earlier classics and their own past work, Tenacious D wildly miss the mark. Upon leaving the theater, even a diehard D fan must admit that the movie consists of 90 percent filler. The remaining 10 percent is hardly comedic gold, but silver at best.
