One of the best things about Year One is there’s barely a trace of Year 2009.

            The two primitive men wandering the Earth have a modern attitude for sure, but at no time in this new comedy do they wink at the camera and imply they’re really 2009 men in ancient times.  As much as he can in an absurd comedy, director/co-writer Harold Ramis devotes his movie to living in the past.  There are no celebrity look-alikes suddenly out of place, and there are no obvious parallels to today’s top stories.  It’s not a parody of modern times but a humorous tweaking of stories we know well that were set a long, long time ago.

            Jack Black and Michael Cera are Zed and Oh, two gatherers from a primitive tribe who are cast out after Zed eats an apple from the forbidden tree of knowledge.  They do their best on their own, but as the movie cleverly establishes early on, they’re not very good hunters or gatherers (the only jobs that really exist in their tribe).  They end up encountering people and situations from the Old Testament and get themselves stuck in situations of… well… Biblical proportions.

            It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good solid Biblical comedy.  The last one I can think of is Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part I.  It’s a gutsy genre to play with, but this isn’t done by the hacks that have produced recent quickie parodies like Disaster Movie or Meet The Spartans.  This is from Harold Ramis, who’s given us timeless comedies that are going to hold up in any era (Groundhog Day, Vacation, Ghostbusters).  So we trust him on an interesting move:  he works with Bible stories that haven’t been used as much as some others.  Instead of Noah or Moses or David & Goliath, he goes for Cain & Abel, Abraham & Isaac, and Sodom & Gomorrah.  It’s going to require at least a little bit of familiarity with those stories to appreciate some of the humor.  There are premises that seem ludicrous at first, but yep, they’re in the Bible. 

            OK, I won’t give Year One complete credit for literary sophistication.  If you know the story, as soon as I wrote “Sodom & Gomorrah,” you knew some paths the movie takes.  Ramis doesn’t mock anyone’s religious beliefs, but does manage to have fun with some of the more extreme themes of the Old Testament (you know – like murder). 

And there are plenty of excrement jokes.  Some of them will make you squirm.  But I’m willing to give Ramis a pass on that, since in Year One, there are only so many things in the world around the characters to joke about.

            Beyond the material, Year One works so well because the cast is so good.  Jack Black is his manic self and is at his best.  Even surrounded by primitive man, he is often the loudest and most unsophisticated guy in the room, or cave.  In his best work, Black is always a fish out of water that audiences love even if no one else onscreen can stand him.

            Michael Cera plays the exact same character type he’s played in Superbad , Juno and Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and I’ve always found that character hysterical.  He does need to show more range in his next couple of movies – but we haven’t seen him as a caveman yet, so we’ll let it slide one more time. 

            And the supporting cast is great:  David Cross as Cain, Oliver Platt as the High Priest of Sodom, Hank Azaria as Abraham and the stunning Olivia Wilde of House as a princess are all excellent.  Look for some fun cameos too:   you get bonus points if you can find Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader.

            We never got a History of the World Part II.  So until Mel Brooks gets to it, I’d be up for Harold Ramis’ Year Two.