- Network: IFC
- Series Premiere Date: Jul 8, 2015
Critic Reviews
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The Spoils Before Dying is almost too well-made at times.
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Gleefully absurd and filled with terrific comic performances--Wiig and Rudolph are stand-outs in the first two episodes--The Spoils Before Dying marks another winning offbeat comedy from IFC.
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The Spoils Before Dying is a huge step up, arguably even better than its predecessor, but it could have shed some of the weight and become truly great.
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As genre satire, Spoils is amusing. As film study, it's informative. As a viewing experience? Uneven: Sometimes funny, a little more often not.
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Spoils Before Dying is funnier than “Babylon.” The earlier miniseries spoofed ’40s melodramas, but this year’s model takes a narrower approach, mining the staples of the even more formulaic noir films, capturing the excesses of the hard-boiled dialogue and pushing them just far enough over the edge to knock you out of your chair.
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It is in some respects a three-hour sketch, but one made with attention to detail and an effective emotional through-line.
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The Spoils Before Dying, which lampoons Hollywood's classic films noirs of the 1940s and 1950s, is a much more assured and accomplished piece of filmmaking. But it's not nearly as wonderfully original or manic as its predecessor.
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The Spoils Before Dying fluctuates wildly from very clever to somewhat exhausting, but it gets better as it goes along, or perhaps I just got accustomed to its unique sense of humor.
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Even when it drags a tad early on, there is always something good coming down the pike.
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The Spoils Before Dying requires some time and in return offers some rewards.
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Spoils takes its murder mystery too seriously. While this isn’t as dour an affair as Ferrell and Wiig’s recent Lifetime debacle, “A Deadly Adoption,” a little bit more nuttiness would make this mini more a treat and not so much an endurance challenge.
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There are, admittedly, some funny bits strewn throughout--Michael Sheen delivers one of the better moments--but even at a little over two hours of actual screen time minus commercials, this feels as padded as Ferrell’s well-stuffed wardrobe.
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Most characters are reduced to a single joke repeated endlessly, under the assumption that the repetition of words or phrases constitutes comedy.
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Despite the occasional laughs, though, this is still a one-note premise stretched excruciatingly thin.
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This three-hour miniseries from Will Farrell and some of his Saturday Night Live buddies is a send-up of 1950s film-noir that more closely resembles another classic Hollywood product: an overinflated boob job.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 4 out of 10
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Mixed: 2 out of 10
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Negative: 4 out of 10
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Jul 19, 2015
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Jul 9, 2015