A review of Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny is, frankly, superfluous. If you’ve seen the series of television shorts upon which the film is based then you already know whether you want to see this picture. If you haven’t – well, to see the movie without knowledge of what came before would be to cheat yourself of the sweetest parts of the experience. All that remains is to confirm whether Kyle Gass and Jack Black can successfully translate their open-mic night characters from the small screen to the big one, and whether the jokes that killed in ten-minute chunks can be sustained over a ninety-minute feature.
The answer to both questions, thankfully, is yes. While so much could have gone disastrously wrong in a Tenacious D movie, it is my happy task to report that the film succeeds on all of the important fronts. It is not the life-changing rock and roll experience that some of the Tenacious D faithful might have imagined, but it is a solid comedy that winks to its fans without dwelling on callbacks and never, never stops being funny.
The Pick of Destiny is an origin story and as such it’s not afraid to reach back. Way back, with an opening musical number featuring a very young JB. Troy Gentile serves ably as a Jack Black Mini-Me, a pre-pubescent rocker rebelling against his too-square Christian dad (Meat Loaf!) until a vision of Ronnie James Dio tells Jack to seek his musical fortune (and bandmates) in Hollywood. (By the time JB finds his way to the right Hollywood, he is the portly man-child we know and love.) Fresh off the bus Jack meets the lion-maned Kyle Gass busking in a park and finds himself in awe of Kyle’s guitar godliness. Will the master impart his wisdom to this humble acolyte? After rescuing Jack from wandering droogs Gass reluctantly agrees, subjecting his new pupil to a series of Kung Fu-style indignities designed to impart the skills necessary for hard rocking.
Somewhere amid the hard-core heckling, bong hits, and penis push-ups, Jack learns that Kyle’s hair is fake and his status as a rock legend even more so — but given Kyle’s obvious talents, Jack takes it in stride and the two finally bond to form Tenacious D. Facing eviction when Kyle’s funds dry up, the band must win the cash prize at open mic night — and to do that, they need the fabled Pick of Destiny, a guitar pick imbued with the dark magic to create true gods of rock.
I always thought it was Tenacious D’s confidence in their own innate rock superiority (despite all external testament to the opposite) that gave them so much charm. Why would they think they needed mystical help? In order to have a movie, I guess, and so it goes. The pick is on display at a rock museum a few hundred miles away – the journey begins.
The best decision made in the service of The Pick of Destiny is the idea that the film need not be beholden to series continuity. There are a number of plot points in Destiny that can’t be reconciled with the Tenacious D shorts, but Gass, Black, and co-writer/director Liam Lynch (who also shepherded Sarah Silverman through Jesus is Magic) wisely opt for the humorous story decisions rather than the ones that will neatly fall into place with what has gone before. There are scenes reminiscent of the original adventures and certain common characters (including Paul F. Tompkins as the brilliantly deapan open mic MC), but Pick of Destiny is clearly meant to stand on its own. The music, too, has the feel of classic Tenacious D without actually regurgitating material. There are only one or two tracks (notably “History”) I recognize from the TV series but the rest are original songs. (I am particularly fond of opener “Kickapoo.”)
It’s unlikely that The Pick of Destiny will win new converts for “the D” outside of their existing demographics. Sure, there are people out there with a taste for the ironic who simply haven’t been exposed to Tenacious D yet, but this film doesn’t reach out to a wider audience beyond those already likely to be drawn to the Gass & Black brand of comedy. It raises the question: who (besides a studio executive) would want Tenacious D to hit the teeny-pop mainstream they so obviously despise? Jack Black already made his family-friendly film — it was called School of Rock. This one’s for the fans.
Screened as part of the 13th Annual Austin Film Festival.
