In Battle Creek City, Michigan, in 1963, Kellogg’s was experiencing a true golden age. Indeed, with hyper-popular brands such as Corn-Flakes, Rice Crispies, Frosted Flakes and other Fruit Loops, the company founded in 1906 reigns almost unchallenged in the lucrative breakfast market. In the factory opposite, however, the competing company Post has not said its last word and is working on a revolutionary invention. Alerted, Bob Cabana, a great idea at Kellogg’s, seeks the help of inventor Donna Stankowski in order to arrive first in the American pantry. In Unfrosted (Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Epic), Jerry Seinfeld very freely recounts the genesis of Pop-Tarts.
Visually, the execution does not live up to the intentions. The deliberately artificial aesthetic, a fantasy vision of the early 1960s, works in theory, but not in practice. In fact, the mixture of real settings, which seem to be made of cardboard, and more or less successful digital panoramas creates a cheap aesthetic rather than a retro varnish: think of The Truman Show (The Truman Show) without the brilliance.
Written by Jerry Seinfeld and three of his long-time collaborators, Spike Feresten, Andy Robin and Barry Marder, the screenplay is more like a series of uneven sketches than a rigorously constructed story. The humor turns out to be a bit corny, “outdated”. Recurring, the mascot jokes are annoying (poor Hugh Grant).
Melissa McCarthy, who plays Donna Stankowski, the inventor recruited to NASA, and Amy Schumer, who plays Marjorie Post, the president of Post ready to do anything to supplant Kellogg’s, easily steal the show from a Jerry Seinfeld who is surprisingly fixed in the role of Bob Cabana — the two stars given to the film are in this case entirely attributable to the two female stars.
Plated references
Each small role is played by a familiar comedy face, not that the film really benefits from it. Several special appearances occur, and many nods are made, including one to the series Mad Men. Seinfeld also makes some old political references (to JFK and Marilyn, in Vietnam) and recent ones (to the QAnon Shaman), most of them gratuitous and obvious.
These passages above all highlight the fact that when it comes to cinematic parody, Mel Brooks is not the one who wants it.
And what can we say about the production, also by Jerry Seinfeld: a succession of shot-reverse shots devoid of imagination, and a completely random management of the scale of shots. However, for all its deficiencies, this satire is especially missing one ingredient: laughter.