'A Nucular Hit': Will Ferrell's 'W' Review Round-Up

The curtain came up last night on Will Ferrell's Broadway debut, You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W. Bush, and the reviews are...

Well, let's put it this way: If this is the kind of thing you could imagine paying $116 to see, then you'll probably love it! For everyone else, it'll be on HBO eventually.

Here's a round-up of what the critics are saying:

· "The real triumph of You're Welcome is that it really isn't about Bush. It's about us. The man onstage represents Dubya, but also another institution, the Dubya Impression-our only real ownership over a remote, diffident, and frightening presidency. We're saying good-bye to both. The experience is bittersweet, but Ferrell and McKay clearly lean toward the bitter." [New York]

· "[U]ltimately this production is less about the legacy of George W. Bush than it is about the comic persona that has been perfected by Will Ferrell. "You're Welcome America" is a lot like Mr. Ferrell's more middling movies, not quite on a level with "Blades of Glory" or "Talladega Nights." Sometimes it's really funny, and sometimes it sort of sags. I laughed, I yawned." [NY Times]

· "Despite minimal input from four other players — including Secret Service agent dance breaks that serve little purpose beyond giving Ferrell time for costume changes — this is basically a solo show, more standup than play. And from his airborne entrance to his faux-reflective exit ("Am I the worst president of all time?"), Ferrell is deep in character — absolutely in charge and at ease, notably in a freestyle segment in which he comes up with instant nicknames for audience members." [Variety]

· "The show (written by Ferrell and directed by his regular partner, Adam McKay) earns the biggest laughs when it's most absurdly fictitious: An extended riff on a plan to train wild monkeys to shoot spear guns in Iraq is blindingly funny, as is a romantic interlude with a short-skirted, aggressively grinding Condoleezza Rice (a raucous Pia Glenn, who seems to have borrowed Gene Simmons' tongue). But many of the jabs aimed at actual events - the 2000 election, the ''Mission Accomplished'' speech, Katrina - feel like sketches that have been done better and far earlier on The Daily Show: We know, we know, Brownie didn't do a heckuva job." [EW]

· "Giving away tooo many lines would ruin the evening, but I can tell you some highlights include Ferrell's mispronouncing of Niger; his referring to Obama as "the Tiger Woods guy"; and the repeated showings of a slide of his penis to make a point (you heard me)...Great art? No way. Slickly amusing, and money making? Yup." [Village Voice]

· "But Ferrell's shots both overreach and fail to sting. His Bush isn't just an unqualified yahoo, but a sexually confused multi-substance abuser - we're informed that he once lived with a man in Vermont - who is eager to move into a "whites-only community in Dallas where I can pay immigrants to clear brush for me, like God intended." Other references to race, religion, ethnicity and lifestyle similarly aim to shock and amuse and do neither." [USA Today]

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