A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014) - Seth Macfarlane

Living in the incredibly dangerous frontier, Albert, a cowardly sheep farmer, keeps his head down in an effort to stay above ground.  After backing out of a gunfight, Albert's golddigger girlfriend leaves him for a wealthy, high-status man of the town.  When Anna, a beautiful but mysterious woman, arrives into town, she befriends Albert, teaching him to stand-up for himself but more importantly find his own sense of courage and confidence.  Anna makes Albert happy again but when Anna's husband, the most notorious outlaw in the region, comes into town, Albert is forced to put his new-found courage to the test.  Seth Macfarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West is a bloated, unfunny mess of a film that recycles jokes in an attempt to keep things fresh throughout its two hour running time.  This is a story that could have easily been in the 90 minute range but instead it's padded to an unnecessary 115 minutes that seriously drags in the second half.   While I thought his previous film TED was merely passable, it at least was a story that perfectly fit Macfarlane's strengths of potty humor and randomness.  A Million Ways to Die in the West is just lazy filmmaking that doesn't feel like a parody of the western genre at all.  The wild west is merely a setting for Macfarlane to insert his various characters to play in, where they gleefully expunge potty humor and other low-brow comedy.  Set Macfarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West is a lazy western parody that just isn't very funny, with maybe one in every five jokes garnering a chuckle.  

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