Kristen Wiig and Will Forte in MacGruber

The yearlong '80s flashback that is 2010 continues with "MacGruber," a comedy that summons up memories of mullets, "MacGyver" and Mike Myers.

A blood-spattered, hit-or-miss, "out there" character comedy of the "Wayne's World"/"Austin Powers" school, it manages to be nostalgic and profane in equal measures, a movie that's retro and yet retrofitted to suit the new cutting edge in screen farce.

Will Forte's thin "Saturday Night Live" sketch is taken to places network TV hasn't yet been in a game attempt to up the raunch to fit The Age of Judd Apatow. And it's really funny for about 15 minutes, mildly amusing for 30 more and a bit of a bore for its other half.

MacGruber is an ex-Navy Seal, ex-Army Ranger, former tight end for the University of Texas-El Paso, ex this or that with 16 Purple Hearts and three Congressional Medals of Honor. In other words, "the best." He's the guy Col. Faith (Powers Boothe) calls on when arch-villain Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer) steals a Russian bomb in the part of Siberia that looks mysteriously like the desert just outside of Los Angeles.

MacGruber breaks out his vintage Miata, with its removable Blaupunkt stereo, rounds up his team, accidentally gets them killed, and must settle for old colleague Vicki (Kristen Wiig of "SNL") and Lt. Piper (Ryan Phillippe, the straight man here). They've got to track down Von Cunth and keep him from blowing up Washington, D.C. MacGruber needs to rip out a few throats ("That's my main move.") and whip up gadgets that he expects to blow up, cripple, distract and otherwise foil the bad guys. (They never do.) Just don't ask him to use a gun.

"Guns are for the weak," he hisses. "Guns are for the stupid."

Like all "SNL" comedies, wacky characters only take this so far. It's a writer's movie, very much in the Myers wordplay-comedy tradition, with Forte's clueless killer agent coining colorful catchphrases and remarking that this or that group of bad guys used to be "a lot less dead than they are now."

Forte has standard-issue Will Ferrell fearlessness -- nervy nudity used to amusing effect, celery stalks included. Wiig, his "SNL" castmate, shares his willingness to take things as far as they need to go to generate at least a little shock. The sex scenes are comically explicit, but more explicit than comical, to be honest.

Kilmer makes a worthy, if somewhat underscripted, villain. And some of the bits -- MacGruber idiotically setting traps that the bad guys never fall for -- tickle. But this still feels instantly dated.

Nostalgia works because our memories play tricks on us. "MacGyver" was an adolescent's TV action adventure that hasn't aged well, and even the best "SNL" sketches became bloated movies that barely hid their shortcomings.

Funny as it sometimes is, "MacGruber" is still a comedy for people juvenile enough to laugh at every F-bomb as though it's the first time they've ever heard a word that naughty.

 

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"MacGruber" Movie Trailer

 

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MPAA rating: R (for strong crude and sexual content, violence, language and some nudity).

Running time: 1:29.

Cast: Will Forte (MacGruber), Kristen Wiig (Vicki St. Elmo), Ryan Phillippe (Lt. Piper), Val Kilmer (Dieter Von Cunth).

Credits: Directed by Jorma Taccone; written by Will Forte, John Solomon and Taccone; produced by John Goldwyn and Lorne Michaels. A Universal Pictures release.