The film also succeeds because it becomes a spoof of the entire music world in general, using a number of hilarious cameos. Some are music stars themselves - Jack White of the White Stripes has a good scene as Elvis, while Eddie Vedder shows up as himself – and some are stars you’ll recognize from previous Apatow movies and others. The guy playing Buddy Holly gets a good laugh, but the best part by far is when Dewey meets the Beatles, which brings the house down. It’s the best scene in the movie.

Unfortunately, the movie feels like it runs too long. For every comedic highlight, I still walked away thinking the movie could’ve been funnier, and I think that’s because it drags in a bunch of areas that could’ve been tightened up with some editing. We didn’t really need the role of the manager (David Krumholtz), and the fifteenth time Dewey’s father shouts “The wrong kid died!” is probably about twelve times too many. That joke is particularly odd, because otherwise, there aren’t really any tiresome running jokes. Heck, they only use “Cox” as a double-entendre like three times.

It’s not brilliant, and frankly it’s not as good as Knocked Up or Superbad either, but Walk Hard can be credited with breathing some life into the flat-lined spoof genre, which is a feat in and of itself. Everybody’s having a really good time, so even though it may not go down in history like Dewey Cox did, you’ll have a good time too.

Movie Grade: B+

Synopsis:

In Columbia Pictures' new comedy "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," co-written and produced by Judd Apatow ("Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby"; "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy") and co-written, produced, and directed by Jake Kasdan, John C. Reilly stars as the larger-than-life musician and songwriter Dewey Cox.

America loves Cox! But behind the music is the up-and-down-and-up-again story of a musician whose songs would change a nation. On his rock 'n roll spiral, Cox sleeps with 411 women, marries three times, has 22 kids and 14 stepkids, stars in his own 70s TV show, collects friends ranging from Elvis to the Beatles to a chimp, and gets addicted to -- and then kicks -- every drug known to man... but despite it all, Cox grows into a national icon and eventually earns the love of a good woman -- longtime backup singer Darlene (Jenna Fischer).