Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is the latest film to be released on Netflix and it comes to us from director David Dobkin. The story follows two childhood friends from Iceland named Lars and Sigrit (Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams) who are presented with the chance to sing and represent their country at the Eurovision Song Contest, which has been their dream – especially for Lars.

These two lead actors work well together, coming across as likeable; but this type of part has been played many times before by different (and arguably better) actors. No matter what they bring to their performances, it’s very much overfamiliar territory. This just about sums up all the other performances in the film – Pierce Brosnan plays a disapproving father, while Dan Stevens plays a Russian rival in the contest. Both give very predictable performances, but what helps them, even if only slightly, is that these two have the kind of charisma that the leads are simply lacking.

There are also cameos at the contest from Graham Norton and Demi Lovato whose only contribution to the film is to disappear and reappear.

Ferrell, McAdams, Brosnan and Stevens go through the film with Icelandic and Russian accents. I’m not much of an expert on accents but they seem moderately convincing. In terms of singing, I was never sure if the actors were doing their own singing or if it was someone else. But whoever was doing it seemed capable enough.

The script, by Ferrell himself and Andrew Steele, is as clichéd as it appears. As I mentioned before, we have a father who does not approve of his son’s dreams, a rival who threatens the main characters’ friendship, moments of apparent triumph, moments where the main duo argue and go their separate ways only to reunite for the climax, and a lot of vulgar jokes.

Danny Cohen provides the cinematography and if there is anything noteworthy about it besides some decent shots of Iceland, it’s that Edinburgh could make an interesting place for a car scene in an action film.

Atli Örvarsson composes the score, but it’s surprisingly overshadowed by the many song sequences. It’s hard to name a standout as they all tend to blend together, but there is a scene at a party where a lot of people are singing different songs all at once. It’s attention-grabbing, if a bit excessive.

What really lets this film down is its running time. A generic underdog comedy like this should be roughly an hour and a half long. But instead, it’s closer to one hour fifty-three minutes. It also drags in certain places to the point where it feels like two hours might have gone by.

So, another predictable comedy with an equal amount of clichéd characters and genre tropes, which is only made distinguishable from other, similar films by incorporating a real event into its plot.

Director: David Dobkin
Writers: Will Ferrell, Andrew Steele
Stars: Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams, Pierce Brosnan
Andrew Moodie
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