Be sure to check out our review of Netflix’s America: The Motion Picture right here. The film is currently available to stream on Netflix.
[poilib element=”accentDivider”]
Just in time for the 4th of July, Netflix’s awesomely erroneous animated adventure America: The Motion Picture has arrived to unleash an absolutely bonkers retelling of the Revolutionary War like you’ve never seen. Want to witness a chainsaw-armed George Washington team with a lightning-shooting Thomas Edison? Ready to behold Benedict Arnold turning into a werewolf and sinking his fangs into…Abe Lincoln? Well, yer gonna.
Written by Archer’s Dave Callaham and directed by Archer’s Matt Thompson, making his full-length animated feature debut, America: The Motion Picture is a swirl of action-packed insanity starring Channing Tatum, Will Forte, Jason Mantzoukas, Andy Samberg, Olivia Munn, and Simon Pegg. It’s an R-rated romp overflowing with common, and uncommon, misconceptions about our nation’s history. IGN spoke to both Thompson and Callaham about this star-studded project and their specific approach to crafting the craziness.
Firstly, and this might actually be the least of the film’s silly inaccuracies, the story hinges on George Washington being best buds with Abraham Lincoln, and it’s only slightly worrying that some folks either might already think this is true or will think it’s true after the movie. “There are many things in this movie that I think people might slightly accept,” Thompson laughed, “and one of my favorites — and Dave stuck with this a long time ago — is that I think people will believe that King James was in power when the colonists began to revolt. It was King George, but it’s awesome because it just kind of rolls right past you.”
[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/06/28/america-the-motion-picture-official-red-band-trailer”]
“My approach to writing,” Callaham added, “and luckily Matt joined me in his approach to the filmmaking, was no research. That was always the rule. The general approach for me on the writing side was that I was just going to write from the hip and when I need a bad guy it’s going to be the first thing that comes to mind. And that’s how you end up with a King James. And when you need the song, what’s the first American song that comes to mind? That would be ‘Free Bird’ for me.”
Thompson joyfully agreed, saying “If there was a SurveyMonkey for Americans that asked them what song they would want to make our American anthem, I bet ‘Free Bird’ would be very high on that list.”
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=And%20there%26%2339%3Bs%20Jason%20Mantzoukas%2C%20who%26%2339%3Bs%20probably%20the%20funniest%20improv%20comic%20that%20I%26%2339%3Bve%20ever%20met.”]
“It’s basically what Americans think of when they think of these moments,” Callaham continued. “And that’s why you have things like Vietnam and the Titanic — which is not necessarily a purely American thing — but just large-scale things that people are vaguely, probably familiar with but might not always know the context of.”
At one point, Thompson and Callaham toyed with the idea of bookending the film somehow, to explain why the story was being told in such a bonkers manner, but ultimately it just wasn’t funny to them. “We just wanted to tell a story and keep you encased in this world,” Thompson explained. “We just love the idea that right away George Washington is doing battle with his old friend Benedict Arnold, who just happens to be a werewolf, and just have you stay inside that moment and not question it. Or question why George Washington has arm chainsaws, for that matter.”
[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”slug=netflix-spotlight-june-2021&captions=true”]
Thompson did discover, however, that directing a full feature was way different from animated TV. “I thought I was just making three episodes of Archer back-to-back, in a way, and I was completely wrong,” he told IGN. “I really learned a lot from listening to (executive producers) [Phil] Lord and [Christopher] Miller specifically. They kept talking to me about how you really have to care about these main characters how you really have to root for them. And how it has to have heart and that people really want to see good people succeed. And a lot of the comedy I’ve made over the years involves someone punching someone else in the face and going ‘haha!’ But you have to root for these people, so it took me a long time to have these nice quieter moments where you follow the characters’ goals and you follow these characters’ hearts. And that heart helps sustain 90 minutes, because if you didn’t care about these characters you’d turn it off after 20 minutes because you couldn’t take the gag after gag after gag.”
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=A%20lot%20of%20the%20comedy%20I%26%2339%3Bve%20made%20over%20the%20years%20involves%20someone%20punching%20someone%20else%20in%20the%20face%20and%20going%20%26%2339%3Bhaha!%26%2339%3B”]
Speaking of those characters, America: The Motion Picture has a stellar lineup of voice talent, the first being Channing Tatum, who also served as an executive producer on the movie. And with Tatum in the lead, it made the casting process a little easier.
“So we’re not knocking on people’s doors saying ‘hey, we’ve got this movie where a giant Paul Bunyan fights a robot Big Ben,’ Thompson said. “No, we say we have a movie starring Channing Tatum and that’s when they’ll read your script and hopefully respond to it. Some of the folks are good friends of mine. Like, I’ve known Judy Greer, who plays Martha Washington, for a very long time. I’ve known Killer Mike for a good bit too. And there’s Jason Mantzoukas, who’s probably the funniest improv comic that I’ve ever met. But then we got other people like Bobby Moynihan, who brought just a lot of wonderful soul and silliness to Paul Revere. And Olivia Munn, who has a lot of great strength about her and we love that she always pushes back and never lets anybody get over on her.”
[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/06/30/resident-evil-infinite-darkness-season-1-review”]
“And through my friends at FX I got to meet Raoul Trujillo who is on the FX show Mayans, and Raoul really helped teach me how Geronimo should act and sound. I was extremely thankful for that. And to round it out we’ve got Simon Pegg and Andy Samberg as the bad guys. And Samberg is just chewing scenery. People don’t even know it’s Samberg in the movie because he’s doing such an affected voice. And then Simon Pegg is just doing this big deep growling voice that makes King James scary. He just killed it. There’s a lot of Emperor Palpatine to it.”
America: The Motion picture also contains more than its fair share of movie spoofs, from big properties like Star Wars and the Fast and the Furious franchise to smaller, niche offerings. “We both have the same sort of pop culture understanding that most people of our generation do,” Callaham said. “So there are Star Wars and Avengers references and so on, but also Matt and I both have certain strange things that we like. Like Harry and the Hendersons. That’s also why there’s a very elaborate Swordfish gag. It’s just whatever makes us laugh.”
[poilib element=”accentDivider”]
Netflix’s America: The Motion Picture is currently available to stream.
