Unfrosted – REVIEW

You wanna know something? The idea for a movie can propel something forward in the industry. You wanna know something else? The person involved in a movie can also propel something forward in the industry. That being said, I think Jerry Seinfeld is pretty funny. For the most part. I watched Seinfeld a lot growing up, and I admittedly have a good pair of rose-tinted glasses for the show. I think we all know that Jerry’s not exactly a great person (look up "jerry seinfeld 17” to find out more!), but we admittedly have an interesting case here with this movie, Unfrosted. Seinfeld’s apparently been wanting to make this movie for a very long time, even eclipsing the run of Seinfeld. So, all things considered, this is Jerry’s dream project. Even hearing the awful reviews for this thing, I wanted to go into this with a fresh set of eyes, but even with that, there’s just something so wrong with Unfrosted.

As I mentioned earlier, this honestly has a pretty decent idea at its core: Different companies feuding with each other could lead to some funny ideas. In this case, it’s 1960s-era Kellogg’s and Post trying to beat the other to the punch with their next product: something akin to a toaster strudel. On top of that, it’s treated with the utmost importance in this film. It’s basically the Space Race, even more important than the actual Space Race. JFK being assassinated? Just a footnote here. That being said, it’s directed, produced, co-written, and starring Seinfeld as a fictional Kellogg’s employee that’s loosely based on William Post, who’s credited for creating the Pop Tart in real life. Let me say that again: fictional. It’s not based on real events like those other corporate biopics that have become all the rage recently (watch Blackberry), and unlike the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto movie, it wasn’t told like a real story until the guy came out and just said he lied about everything a month before the movie came out. This was intentionally made as a fictional story because Seinfeld has a bit about Pop Tarts in his more recent stand-up act. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

Now, in terms of the comedy here, good comedy can be bolstered by a very good idea at the groundwork. In Unfrosted, there’s undoubtedly a good idea here, but it feels like Seinfeld just… forgot to be funny. Or maybe he forgot how to be funny. Nearly every single joke here not only misses completely but actively falls flat on its face, and it’s always something different. Maybe the joke was funny, but the delivery was off. Maybe the editing was just so off-kilter that it took the wind out of any momentum that could’ve made the joke funny. Maybe it’s Amy Schumer. There is one joke that worked, though, but that’s mainly because you’re getting two actors to play very similar roles to ones that they’re known for. I’m not gonna spoil it here, but it got one chuckle out of me. One chuckle. It makes no sense because there are multiple people in this that are usually very funny in comedies. There’s a lot of names, so I’m not going to list them all out, but they’ve been funny in at least something. Simply put, they just aren’t funny here.

The last thing I’m mentioning here is Seinfeld himself. As I said earlier, he’s put everything into this. Director, co-writer, producer… he’s like the comedy Zack Snyder here. There’s one thing I like about his direction in Unfrosted, and that’s the recreation of the 1960s aesthetic. Yes, it looks like a much more commercialized Wes Anderson at many points, but I can’t lie when I say that I fell into the overall look of the movie. However, digitally lowering the quality of black and white footage doesn’t make it retro. I could see the pixels in the recreations of old Pop Tart ads. Making something 360p doesn’t make it from the 60s. It makes it look like a YouTube video from 16 years ago. That just got under my skin. Outside of that, it just feels like Seinfeld didn’t have any idea what he was doing while directing. It’s honestly pretty baffling, which is a good way to describe this whole movie.





I had to do a little bit of a reality check with Unfrosted. It’s not the worst thing in the world, there are some redeeming moments, but it made me realize that maybe it was Larry David that made Seinfeld work. Not only was Unfrosted not funny, it was actively unfunny. Jerry had been talking about certain topics being off-limits in comedy now because of the politics and “the woke left” while marketing this, which is its own conversation, but I’ll end with this: If you start bashing other people in your line of work to promote what you’re making, there’s nothing substantive in what you made.


Unfrosted is streaming on Netflix, if you feel so inclined.