Warning: The following article on Please Don’t Destroy: The Legend of Foggy Mountain contains minor spoilers for the film.
Please Don’t Destroy: The Legend of Foggy Mountain is the next in a long and storied line of films coming from stars of Saturday Night Live. This time it’s from the sketch trio of Martin Herlihy, John Higgins, and Ben Marshall, known collectively as Please Don’t Destroy. The trio produces the viral, pre-recorded videos for the show that often feature that week’s host in ridiculous situations. They are, quite honestly, funny-as-hell human beings who make good sketch comedy.
But, as the long and storied line of SNL comedy films shows, being good at sketches does not mean you’re automatically good at making a comedic movie. A sketch is short and set up around a single punchline or gag, while a film (usually) has a narrative through line and humor that depends more on comedic build and timing. They are entirely different beasts and it can often be hard for sketch comedy to jump to the big screen.
Now, Please Don’t Destroy does have a leg up here. They’re not taking a specific sketch and spinning it into a full-length movie but instead have created their first feature film entirely from scratch. Starring the three guys as loser versions of themselves (self-mockery is one of their best schticks), the film is about the trio going on an adventure to discover the long-lost treasure of Foggy Mountain and finding themselves along the way. Ben, Martin, and John are at different points in their life with Martin engaged to his religious girlfriend (Nichole Sakura), Ben trying to impress his dad (Conan O’Brien), and John watching his two best friends drift away. A late-blooming childhood adventure à la The Goonies ensues replete with an evil cult, friendly animal sidekick, and park ranger romance.
The Legend of Foggy Mountain is surprisingly standard in almost every way. One of the main reasons Please Don’t Destroy’s comedy works is that it often subverts expectations, flipping whatever they’re doing into something you wouldn’t expect. In this case, you’d expect Foggy Mountain to subvert the tropes of ’80s childhood adventure movies, especially given its cast of adults, but, instead, it settles for a straight take with the comedy coming from slapstick, sight gags, or callouts. That stuff can, of course, be hilarious and parts of Foggy Mountain are definitely just that, but the pacing and quality of the comedy never stacks up to make it work as a whole.
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Not to compare one trio of white, digital-short-making, awkward SNL comedian troupes to another but we need to do exactly that. Lonely Island’s big-screen debut was with the cult classic Hot Rod, a film that amounted to a bunch of sketches stuck together into a loose plot but that was also insanely subversive in its comedy, often breaking the fourth wall or taking entire scenes to drill hard into one joke. It was bold, if not altogether successful. Foggy Mountain feels nothing like that, instead playing more like an SNL sketch spin-off film like Night at the Roxbury or Superstar. I kept waiting for the creative comedy the trio delivers in its sketches to take over but it never does.
This critique, of course, makes it sound like the film is entirely unfunny and you won’t crack a smile. That’s entirely untrue. There are plenty of humourous parts and if you already subscribe to Peacock and have a free night you can do far worse than tuning on Please Don’t Destroy: The Legend of Foggy Mountain. The supporting cast is solid and just watching O’Brien on screen is always a joy. There are a few scenes in the film that are legitimately hilarious (a slightly surreal musical number being the best) and movies that have even just that are few and far between.
The problem with Please Don’t Destroy: The Legend of Foggy Mountain is that it doesn’t have any problems. It plays everything too straight, delivering a comedy that’s far too comfortable for a comedy trio that can do so much more. Condemning a film for what it isn’t can be unfair but, in this case, it feels like there just could be so much more from a group that’s already delivered better.
