Here's what the reviews are saying about Netflix's his 2005 comedy Wedding Crashers. (Ferrell was uncredited for his cameo in that film.)
Ferrell and McAdams star as Lars Erickssong and Sigrit Ericksdottir, two Icelandic singers and best friends since childhood who, thanks to a (darkly) comical set of circumstances, are given the chance to represent Iceland at the Eurovision Song Contest. Dan Stevens costars as the pair's nemesis, the Russian performer Alexander Lemtov, along with a ing cast that includes American pop music star Demi Lovato, TV personality Graham Norton (as himself), and multiple real-life Eurovision singers.
Reviews for Eurovision Song Contest have been mixed, with the film currently sitting at 59% on Rotten Tomatoes after 51 reviews. Among the common complaints in the negative reviews are that the movie is simply too long and doesn't have enough good jokes to fill out its two hours-plus runtime.
The various song performances are solid and McAdams never misses an opportunity to remind us that she’s one of her generation’s most gifted comedy stars (the oblivious sincerity of her Sigrit is a good foil to Ferrell’s standard-issue screaming buffoon shtick), but the whole film is inescapably ambivalent to its own premise in a way that can’t hope to sustain two full hours - it’s not absurd enough to these characters, nor sober enough to reflect what the Eurovision Song Contest means to them, or even what they mean to each other.
Not so much a comedy, more a strained, movie-length featuremercial for the Eurovision Song Contest brand, hung on a plot borrowed from The Producers, and originally planned to coincide with the now cancelled Eurovision 2020. Will Ferrell is phoning it in as co-writer and co-star, playing opposite Rachel McAdams, who though an estimable performer is not a natural comic.
I don’t necessarily mind that the plot points are so staid, but if you’re going to be narratively predictable, then the comedy should shine through. That’s not to say that EuroVision needs to be a spoof along the lines of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, but a safe narrative foundation should allow room to maneuver with more outlandish jokes, and EuroVision rarely goes there.
If ever a comedy cried out for tight 85-minute treatment that keeps the gags pinging fast enough to disguise the thin sketch material at its core, it's this hit-or-miss two-hour feature. Then again, when the target being spoofed already borders on self-parody, this kind of broad comedy can seem almost redundant, a quality Eurovision shares with Ferrell's competitive ice-skating farce, Blades of Glory.
Both the negative and positive reviews agree Eurovision Song Contest is essentially a thinly-sketched recycling of the plot from Ferrell's comedies Talladega Nights and Blades of Glory, only with McAdams taking the spot usually reserved for one of Ferrell's male costars and the eponymous competition being riffed on (as opposed to NASCAR culture or competitive figure skating). At the same time, a number of critics feel the film is more affectionate towards its characters and satirical targets than those comedies were - partly because Ferrell's a longtime fan of Eurovision, but also because the real event is so unabashedly campy and grandiose, it's difficult to truly parody it. Combined with Ferrell and McAdam's surprisingly strong comedic chemistry, the more charitable reviews feel this is enough to elevate Eurovision Song Contest into being an uneven comedy, but an overall enjoyable one (and a far better one than Ferrell's last mainstream farce, the universally-maligned Holmes & Watson).
Adding these things up, Eurovision Song Contest becomes a film of inconsistencies. It doesn’t quite capture the magic of Will Ferrell’s early buddy comedies but still delivers enough heart and merriment to earn at least six points from the viewing public.
Eurovision has its clunky stretches - Ferrell’s script, written with Andrew Steele, could be a little tighter, a little sharper, and still keep its rambling appeal - but the film is routinely rescued by a deftly staged music number or an invigoratingly off-color joke.
There’s not much to spoil, broadly speaking. You know where the film is headed. But even so, Eurovision gives us an inspired and hilarious match between subject and stars, all driven by melodrama: The glorious, over-the-top theatricality of the song contest makes an ideal stage for Ferrell’s brand of high-highs and low-lows.
Instead, what we're left with is an overlong hit-and-miss comedy that doesn't exactly earn nul points, but won't be going home with the full douze points either.
All in all, the reviews for Eurovision Song Contest are divided, but only just so. The critics who enjoyed it feel it has enough humor and unexpected heart to justify a watch on Netflix (despite being too long for its own good), while the ones who gave it a thumbs-down it it has its moments (most notably, entertainingly flashy musical numbers that capture the spirit of Eurovision) and isn't actively terrible so much as banal and otherwise unmemorable. It's clearly a far cry from attending the actual Eurovision Song Contest, but it might just be perfect if you're looking for an amusingly silly and even kinda sweet distraction to enjoy at home for a couple of hours.
