A comedic origin story of the Pop Tart, co-written and directed by Jerry Seinfeld? I’m all in and ready to laugh. Well, I didn’t expect it to be THIS silly. While Seinfeld’s feature directing debut is miles away from a great film, Unfrosted is sweet and lite and goes down easy, just like the breakfast product it honors.

Taken from his classic standup bit designed around the Pop Tart, Seinfeld carved out a movie that rightfully mocks the latest Hollywood trend of making unnecessary origin stories on just about anything. From Air Jordans to the BlackBerry and the video game Tetris, filmmakers are wasting millions of dollars on “making of” tales about products; each film kidding itself that there is something entertaining in their subject matter. Last year gave us the origin tale of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos! It is a sad commentary on the movie business that my previous sentence is based on fact.

Co-written by Spike Feresten, Barry Marder, and Andy Robin, it is best to go into this picture knowing that Jerry Seinfeld made a sugar-coated antidote to all the heavy real-life foreign and domestic strife that has plagued news cycles for the last 7 years. Unfrosted is pure comedic fantasy about an early 1960s war between the two heads of the breakfast industry. For a story like this, it was smart for the legendary comedian to go broad. After all, the idea of “breakfast cereal wars” lends itself to Mel Brooks-styled silliness.

Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer) and Edsel Kellogg III (Jim Gaffigan) are out to find a new breakfast food that will satisfy the sweet teeth of America’s children while boosting the profit margins of their respective companies. Seinfeld plays everyman Bob Cabana, a top shelf executive working at the main Kellogg’s headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan. The company is No. 1 in the breakfast cereal game with Post as their only real competition. Always number two, Post creates a new product that should topple the mighty Kellog’s, a handheld fruit pastry. Courtesy of two dumpster-diving kiddos (a quite funny Bailey Sheetz and Eleanor Sweeney), Bob learns of Post’s plan, causing him and Edsel to scramble for a similar and better version.

Bob rehires his old partner, Donna “Stan” Stankowski (the always great Melissa McCarthy), convincing her to leave her job at NASA and help him to create the perfect morning pastry. In a very funny riff on Phillip Kaufman’s 1983 Mercury 7 classic, The Right Stuff, Kellog’s unveils their team of “scientific” geniuses that include Steve Schwinn (Jack McBrayer), inventor of Sea Monkeys Harold Von Braunhut (Thomas Lennon), grandfather of soft serve ice cream Tom Carvel (Adrian Martinez), Jack Lalanne (James Mardsen), and even Chef Boy Ardee (Bobby Moynihan).

This is a movie filled with many comic talents, all of whom are friends and colleagues of Jerry Seinfeld. The first-time filmmaker makes sure his large cast gets in their moments. Everyone from Rachael Harris, Cedric the Entertainer, Sebastian Maniscalco, Peter Dinklage, George Wallace, Christian Slater (as a sinister milkman), Dan Levy, Fred Armisen, and more get their turn at making us laugh.

The best cameos include Bill Burr as a curt and horny JFK, Dean Norris as Khrushchev, Hugh Grant as a failed Shakespearean actor who now plays Tony the Tiger, and Kyle Dunnigan as a hilarious version of Walter Cronkite with serious marital issues.

Seinfeld’s freshman outing as a director is absolutely over-the-top (but never “madcap”) ridiculousness from beginning to end. Occasionally, the silliness is too much, but ol’ Jerry always manages to go for broke in the quest to get a laugh, and laugh I most certainly did. Not a ton, but just enough, and the picture always kept me grinning.

One of the film’s funniest moments is a funeral where (much to the offense of the widow) the pallbearers are breakfast cereal mascots and the priest is Isaiah Lamb, Mr. Quaker Oats himself. As the casket is lowered into the ground, it is surrounded by cereal. The Fruit Loops mascot Toucan Sam sings “Ave Maria” while other mascots add milk and stir around the casket. Ridiculous, yes, but also quite funny. This is Zucker Brothers wackiness served up with zeal by its cast and creator and the fun is infectious.

As the film turns facts into comedy fiction, the screenplay takes jabs at everything from the Cuban Missile Crisis, NASA’s plans to go to the moon, Russians, milkmen, cereal mascots, Colombian drug lords, ventriloquists, and even the 2021 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol.

One of the film’s main delights is the absence of vulgarity. Today’s comedies have an over reliance on mean-spirited characters spouting every “naughty word” because they think cursing is to be funny. While there is certainly a place for vulgar comedy, that’s all there is today. Seinfeld’s candy colored foray into feature films is a pleasant watch that one could share with the whole family.

To be frank, with a comic mind as witty as Jerry Seinfeld’s, the film should have been less goofy and much sharper. In all transparency, there was the occasional moment when I was close to giving this one a negative review, but the near-constant smile on my face wouldn’t let me.

Unfrosted is pure lunacy and good fun. Jerry Seinfeld wants to make us laugh through 93 minutes of high-camp fun. For the most part, I believe he succeeds.

 

Unfrosted

Written by Spike Feresten, Barry Marder, Andy Robin, & Jerry Seinfeld

Directed by Jerry Seinfeld

Starring Jerry Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer

PG-13, 93 Minutes, Netflix Studios, Columbus 81 Productions