Two men, one dream: become the greatest band in the world, regardless of a lack of talent, looks or intelligence. In the first official Tenacious D movie, Jack Black plays a naive Midwesterner in search of musical fame, eventually meeting up with the incredibly grotesque yet adorable Kyle Gass (KG), a would-be rocker, i.e. total slacker. Together the two form Tenacious D, a band intent on being greater then Van Halen – but that can’t even manage to rouse an open-mic-night crowd.
The band’s seemingly hopeless mission to become famous and pay the rent is made even more humorous by its epic subdivisions into legend-titled chapters like “”The Pick of Destiny”” and “”The Divide.”” Indulging in epic car chases and laser dance scenes a la “”Mission Impossible,”” the movie fluctuates between deliciously ludicrous and painfully stupid as it follows a quest to obtain the pick of destiny from its highly secured place in the Rock and Roll Museum. Some inspired scenes of absolute randomness – one in which Black, dressed like a baby Sasquatch, flies over a neon mushroom field – explain the soundtrack released prior to the film, and are almost brilliant enough to make up for the fact that they are completely irrelevant to the plot. In general, the theme here is the more outrageous, the better: Like Tenacious D’s music, the film’s imagery and jokes are quirky, vulgar and outrageous.
Black has an arsenal of one-liners screamed at high volume – and to great effect, as the audience is forced to guffaw at even the dumbest utterance (“”Ahhh, sweeeet baby!””). After all, it’s Jack Black, the same guy who sang about the rent being due in “”School of Rock”” – he obviously has a knack for screaming it like it is. “”Destiny”” makes no pretense that it is anything other then Black and KG played at high volume, identical to their TV personas on HBO’s “”Tenacious D”” series – even fleshing out their characters a bit more as it reveals how the two first met and created a tribute to the greatest song ever written.
The best parts of the film, however, are the inspired cameos by Ben Stiller, Tim Robbins and, of course, Satan. Stiller is unexpected as the grubby, tattooed guitar store owner who first points out the pick to the boys, and Robbins is hilariously creepy as the one-legged “”stranger”” who crutches along, leering at Black and threatening him with a knife, demanding, “”Come here so I may stab you!”” – even as he inches so slowly that the two easily shuffle away. The devil is similarly well captured as a huge, fiery, half-man half-goat who loves miming sex with KG and rocking out. Why not?
The songs are buoyant and never take themselves seriously, ranging from the description of an air ride on a sasquatch to a face-off with the devil for KG’s soul. In the end, “”The Pick of Destiny”” is as deep as a SoCal puddle and as crazy as a drunken log ride at Disneyland, but it can make you laugh even through the groans.
