Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga – Film Review
When aspiring musicians Lars Erickssong (Will Ferrell) and Sigrit Ericksdóttir (Rachel McAdams) are given the opportunity of a lifetime to represent their country at the world’s biggest song competition, they finally have a chance to prove that any dream is a dream worth fighting for.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is not only the most bizarre and questionable film title of the year thus far, but it is also one of the strangest movies I have seen in quite some time. On the surface, some may look at the poster and think it is just some typical music film about two musicians trying to make it big and win the Eurovision contest, but that would not be accurate enough. It’s a film that has many crazy and out-of-this-world bonkers ideas, but unfortunately, barely any of them work.
The film feels remarkably similar to music biopic parodies such as Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny with its wacky sense of style and over-the-top goofy comedy, but the entire time I was watching it, I couldn’t help but feel like those aforementioned films and several others did this idea much better.
Nearly every joke here is extremely childish and weak. It was obvious while watching it that I was supposed to be laughing quite frequently, but instead, I found myself shaking my head and wondering when the film would be over so I wouldn’t have to endure any more scenes of Will Ferrell with long hair and a Swedish accent telling dumb jokes.
Will Ferrell (left) as Lars Erickssong and Rachel McAdams (right) as Sigrit Ericksdóttir in Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020).
Starring opposite Farrell is Rachel McAdams, who is easily one of the film’s biggest strong points. She isn’t powerful here or anything, but you can tell that she actually had a lot of fun portraying this zany character Sigrit who, much like Lars, has a dream of making it to Eurovision and winning the contest. Her character gets some of the most depth and development here. It’s also quite difficult not to smile watching her give her all in this role. I just wish that she could have been in a better movie that was deserving of her talents. She is, in my opinion, one of the strongest comedic actors in recent years. Her work as Annie in the 2018 film Game Night was nothing short of spectacular.
Besides McAdams’s entertaining performance, the original music that was created for the film was also fun to listen to, even if the songs weren’t the most well-written. They are supposed to be silly and are not meant to be taken seriously, and I had a perfectly enjoyable time listening to them.
Sadly though, there really isn’t much else I can say regarding praise for this movie. Its sense of humor is annoying and childish, Ferrell doesn’t do anything he hasn’t done dozens of times in the past, and it also plays out in a fairly predictable and traditional route, which is disappointing because it seems like this movie was trying to be another music biopic parody, but instead, it ends up feeling familiar, which is the last thing it should have felt like.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga has a sense of humor that’s too childish and stale, with a story that plays out too familiar to be a welcomed addition to the biopic parody subgenre.
Overall Grade: D
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for crude sexual material including full nude sculptures, some comic violent images, and language
Cast: Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams, Dan Stevens, Melissanthi Mahut, Mikael Persbrandt, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Graham Norton, Demi Lovato, Pierce Brosnan
Directed by: David Dobkin
Distributed by: Netflix
Release Date: June 26, 2020
Running Time: 123 minutes