The Taking of Pelham 123 and Year One

When Travolta and Denzel make a movie together shouldn't it be like one of the best movies you've seen in a long time? Sometimes I wonder if these actors get together and decide to just give 75%. How can the guy who played such an entertaining bad guy in "Face/Off" be so boring here? How can the man who made us cry with his pure spirit in "Glory", put me to sleep in a movie like this? (I must say that I didn't actually fall asleep here, this wasn't quite as boring as the action scenes in "Iron Man"). I think I wanted to see this film for four reasons; Tony Scott directs, Washington and Travolta act, and the preview had a good hook. That hook maybe could have been the difference, but alas, it was just the same old formula heist movie. Scott made a movie with a lot of flashy editing, fast trains, intense close-ups and a lot of subway sound effects. Denzel and Travolta played Good Denzel and Bad Travolta as though they were still in the midst of the writer's strike and were showing solidarity for their fellow filmmakers. And the hook wasn't a hook at all, merely a lame twist on a worn-out genre. And "The Taking of Pelham 123" was by far and away the better of the two movies I'm reviewing this evening...

Did I really think "Year One" was worth seeing? In retrospect I'm not really sure what was going through my head. I think I only laughed once during the whole movie, and that was in response to a reaction from a fellow filmgoer behind me. After the movie was over I realized that the even the parts I thought were funny parts in the trailer turned out not to really be funny at all. Some of you are probably thinking; "What funny parts in the trailer?" ....Exactly!
Jack Black wasn't really funny when he needs to be really funny. The story was stupid, I mean really stupid when it really needed to be funny. Hank Azaria had a funny take on his character, but within the context of the film, it just wasn't funny enough. Perhaps you get my concern, when a comedy isn't funny, it has failed to accomplish its' purpose and thereby was a compete waste of my time.