MacGruber Red-Band Trailer #2

We've already seen one red-band trailer for MacGruber, in which director Jorma Taccone and Will Forte expands their MacGyver-spoof shorts from Saturday Night Live into an unlikely feature comedy. Now there's a second red-band clip which emphasizes the action a bit more...or, wait, the comedy? No, definitely the action. See the confusion below.

Among other things, this trailer sets up Val Kilmer's villain Dieter von Cunth better than previous clips have done, and more Kilmer is always OK with me. Kilmer is often great in less than serious roles, and he's one of the players I'm excited to see go to work here.

There are also a few amusing 'team'building' jokes, which play pretty well coming just a day after the debut of the first big trailer for The Expendables, which takes the 'team of tough guys' concept a lot more seriously. In the long run, though, Kristen Wiig comes out looking like the hero in this trailer — a couple of her moments are great.

Response to the movie was mixed out of SXSW. The basic theme of many reviews seemed to be 'fun, but fluffy,' and, really, what else do you expect from a movie that originated in a series of short parody sketches? The fact that this exists in the first place is still a surprise (though we've become used to it, just read back to some of the early articles covering the production) and I'll just be happy to see a goofy, entertaining diversion.

In that respect, IFC's comments from SXSW might be the most telling:

To answer the immediate question at hand, "MacGruber" is in fact the funniest "Saturday Night Live" spinoff since "Wayne's World" in 1992. But as anyone who follows such things knows, that isn't necessarily high praise..." ... "it mainly works in the way that Forte's best sketches do — by taking gags further than anyone else would dare.