Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga’ on Netflix, in Which Will Ferrell Enters An International Pop Music Contest

Netflix original movie Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga sure seems to be aiming for a wide international crossover audience. First, most of us stupide Americains, our minds addled by The Voice and American Idol, maybe don’t know that the Eurovision Song Contest is a 64-year-old European institution, a TV music competition stretching across 50-odd countries and comparable to the Super Bowl in hype and viewership. The movie’s hook for us North Americans is star, co-writer and producer Will Ferrell, who teams with Canada’s own Rachel McAdams to play a pair of Icelandic pop-music hopefuls participating in the glitzy mega-event. Will Will unite the world with his usual gaga silliness, or leave us pondering the very nature of laughter due to its absence?

EUROVISION SONG CONTEST: THE STORY OF FIRE SAGA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Husavik, Iceland is a tiny fishing village where the skies are a lovely shade of cobalt blue and the umlauts are looooonnngggg. Lars Erickssong (Ferrell) and Sigrit Ericksdottir (McAdams) have been friends for decades, fronting a musical outfit dubbed Fire Saga. They’ve long been stuck playing down the pub, where patrons scream for them to play a song presumably about sexual intercourse titled Jaja Ding Dong. They’re frustrated, nursing a dream of being pop superstars instead of local laughingstocks.

When they’re not working on their music, Lars is a meter maid whose father (Pierce Brosnan) deems him an embarrassment, and Sigrit is a teacher who believes “the elves” have some kind of spiritual grip on reality. She secretly yearns for his loins, although there’s some question of paternity, and people frequently take one look at them and think they’re siblings. Whatever? Whatever. They enter their song Double Trouble for Eurovision consideration, and as luck would have it, they make it to the Icelandic finals. Their performance is disastrous, but the other 11 participants die in an explosion, including frontrunner Katiana (Demi Lovato), who occasionally visits Lars as a flaming, one-armed ghost. 

Sigrit and Lars fly to Edinburgh for the competition, where they meet fellow contestants Alexander (Dan Stevens) and Mita (Melissanthi Mahut), who, for some reason, seem to have romantic inclinations toward these Icelandic naifs. This complicates their rehearsals and performances and may just put a stick in the spokes of their destiny. Will Eurovision be Fire Saga’s triumph or trauma?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is forgettable Ferrell shtickfest Blades of Glory crossed with Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping if nobody gave a shit if any of the bits worked.

Performance Worth Watching: McAdams is perfectly OK in this, but here’s where I say that Game Night is a far superior display of her sharp comedic timing, because Game Night is the best mainstream comedy of the past five years.

Memorable Dialogue: “The elves have gone too far!” — Sigrit’s exclamation upon witnessing the explosion that puts them on the path to Eurovision glory

Sex and Skin: The film is rated PG-13 for “crude sexual material including full nude sculptures.” I can confirm the sculptures are male. 

Our Take: One of Fire Saga’s spectacle-ridden stage performances puts Ferrell on a giant hamster wheel, which functions as an unfortunate metaphor: he sweats like crazy, but generates no comedy. The movie is a gormless, saggy thing, a two-hour dawdle through Europop/Eurotrash parody and colloquial Scandinavian comedy quasi-truisms — weird sweaters, folksy sayings like “Anger does not churn the butter,” jokes about fish/whales. Farrell and McAdams speak in goofy accents that make us feel every umlaut slap us in the face like frigid haddocks. “Semen and Garfunkel,” Sigrit and Lars inflect, more bundles of stereotypical quirks than actual characters. 

The movie starts hitting third-act beats at the halfway point, and we sigh, still waiting for a decent laugh. Director David Dobkin, helmer of sloppy, overlong comedies (Fred Claus, Wedding Crashers), veers through this vaguely plotted screenplay, throwing in whirling-camera music-video sequences to prop up a parade of ridiculous costumes, heaps and wads of flabby slapstick and cameos by celebs Americans won’t recognize. Slop is fine if the jokes hit, but Ferrell, Dobkin and co. misfire with alarming regularity. We laugh to bond with others, bring more oxygen into our bodies and boost our immune systems. Watching Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, I worried I’d get sick, suffocate and die alone. 

Our Call: SKIP IT. If you’ve seen one movie featuring Will Ferrell’s gut wrapped in a stretch bodysuit, you’ve seen them all.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga on Netflix