Over the past year we've had movies about Nike, Beanie Babies, Flamin' Hot Cheetos and, of course, Barbie.
So is it really all that surprising that we now have one about Pop Tarts?
Jerry Seinfeld's directorial debut 'Unfrosted' is a starry affair that plants its tongue in its cheek as it celebrates the Kellogg's breakfast pastry.
Working from a screenplay Seinfeld wrote alongside Spike Feresten, Andy Robin and Barry Marder, the director also plays Bob Cabana, a Kellogg's executive who comes across Isaac Bae's young boy George who has stopped off in a diner while preparing to run away from home.
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Engaging George in conversation after he orders a pop tart at the counter, Bob starts to recount the story of how the delicacy were invented and his role in it.
The year is 1963.
Bill Burr's JFK is in the White House, Kyle Dunnigan's Walter Kronkite is America's most trusted news anchor and Kellogg's is ruling the roost in the breakfast cereals market.
Battle Creek, Michigan is the home of several breakfast corporations, with Kellogg's engaged in a fierce rivalry with Post but cleaning up each year at the Bowl and Spoon Awards.
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Despite the company's dominance of the market, Kellogg's is still obsessed with the operations of its main rival, with Post rumoured to be working on something revolutionary.
Amy Schumer's Marjorie Post and her sidekick, Max Greenfield's Rick Ludwin appear remarkably cocky at the Bowl and Spoon Awards.
And that really gets under the skin of Jim Gaffigan's CEO Edsel Kellogg III, Sarah Cooper's Poppy Northcott and Bob.
Determined to find out what is going on, Bob notices some kids jumping into a dumpster outside the rival company's factory and decides to investigate.
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Peering in the dumpster, he discovers them devouring a fruity goo that they find addictive and realises that Post is developing a fruit pastry, having stolen some Kellogg's research.
Determined not to let Post beat them to the development of a product that could kill the traditional cereal market, Kellogg's commissions a crack team of business brains to design its own pastry.
These include James Marsden's fitness guru Jack LaLane, Thomas Lennon's sea monkey salesman Harold Von Braunhut, Bobby Moynihan's celebrated Chef Boy Ardee, Adrian Martinez's soft ice cream inventor Tom Carvel and Jack McBrayer's respected bicycle designer Steve Schwinn.
Heading up this disparate team is Melissa McCarthy's NASA food scientist Donna Skankowski, a previous Kellogg's employee who has had a fractious relationship with Edsel.
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At a meeting of the five cereal families that also involves Andy Daly's Quaker Oats chief Isiah Lamb, Edsel is horrified when Marjorie announces that Post are one week away from getting their revolutionary product on the shelves.
Bob and Donna are subsequently dispatched to Puerto Rico to meet Felix Solis' sugar kingpin El Sucre and strike a deal to buy up all available supplies.
This drives Marjorie and Rick Ludwin to Moscow to meet Dean Post's Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev and cut their own deal for Cuban sugar supplies, which in turn results in Bob being summoned to the White House by JFK to see how they can undermine the Communist plot to support Post.
As you can guess from this synopsis, 'Unfrosted' is an unashamedly "zany" tale that spoofs the 1960s, the Space Race, the Cuban Missile crisis, MAGA and many, many films.
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Those movies include Philip Kaufman's astronaut tale 'The Right Stuff,' Ridley Scott's 'Alien,' Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Godfather' and while it is probably coincidental given when it was in production, Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer'.
There's also a definite Tim Burton's 'Mars Attacks!' vibe off Seinfeld's film - except it is nowhere near as funny.
Yes, beware folks because this is one of those movies that just tries too hard to secure laughs for lame gags.
You can tell it's a dodgy comedy because at the end, the film has one of those credits sequences consisting of bloopers designed to convince you how everyone had a wonderful time during the making of the film.
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That's never a good sign.
It's as if the filmmaker isn't confident the movie is funny enough, so in one desperate throw of the dice he or she resorts to a blooper reel of actors fluffing their lines, swearing, giggling and generally goofing around on set, doing silly dances.
And that's exactly what you get at the end of 'Unfrosted' which, surprisingly, given Seinfeld's comedy history, is remarkably laugh free throughout.
What Seinfeld has created is an inedible comedy, where half baked ideas are just spat out at the viewer in the hope that they might tickle the funny bone.
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There's a sub plot about breakfast cereal mascots feeling abandoned and deciding to revolt with a MAGA January 6th style storming of the Kellogg's headquarters led by Hugh Grant's Tony the Tiger actor Thurl Ravenscroft, Kyle Mooney's Snap, Mikey Day's Crackle and Drew Tarver's Pop.
Grant churns out the same ham actor routine we saw in 'Paddington 2' but it's that sort of movie.
He's not the only actor onscreen coasting.
Peter Dinklage and Christian Slater turn up as members of a milkman mafia who threaten Bob about the development of a breakfast product that doesn't require dairy.
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Jon Hamm and John Slattery appear as New York ad men in a really lazy spoof of their 'Mad Men' personas.
Fred Armisen turns in a ssend upf of Mike Pence during the MAGA parody.
Seinfeld, Gaffigan, Schumer, Burr, Marsden, McBrayer etc do their normal schtick.
None of it is funny.
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Stars are simply shovelled onscreen in the hope that their mere presence might be enough.
It isn't.
If anything, 'Unfrosted' is a depressing parade of actors who have done better and ought to know better.
It's the tongue in cheek corporate movie that none of us needed.
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Whereas 'Barbie' was a brilliantly conceived comic meditation on feminism and masculinity, Seinfeld's film is a hit and hope affair that's about as funny as a having a filling at the dentist's.
This trend of corporate brand inspired movies is getting boring.
We need it to stop before someone commissions a self congratulatory comedy about the geniuses behind Toilet Duck or Preparation H.
That's not far fetched.
In this era of streaming and the demand for content, it really could happen.
('Unfrosted' received it's world premiere at Grauman's Egyptian Theater in Hollywood on April 30, 2024 and was made available for streaming on Netflix on May 3, 2024)
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