Up until now, Hollywood’s tendency to show the creation of certain items has mostly focused on highlighting the significance of those products’ eventual existence. Examples of this include Tetris in Tetris, the beginnings of smartphones in BlackBerry, and Nike’s Air Jordans in Air. Unfrosted, the Pop-Tarts film starring, co-written, produced, and directed by none other than Jerry Seinfeld, adopts a different tack. It’s intentionally quite stupid, an overdone spoof of those clichés that give the making of a fruit-goo-filled rectangle historical significance. Seinfeld was one of those youngsters, and Unfrosted contends that the introduction of the Pop-Tart was the most significant cultural development of the 1960s.
Therefore, his feature directorial debut is a crazy, candy-colored, nostalgic frolic through a civil war between cereal brands, as breakfast rivals Kellogg’s and Post prepare to lead the toaster-pastry revolution. While there is some truth to it (Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts and Post’s Country Squares actually caused a fight), Seinfeld chooses to ignore the facts in favor of a screwball comedy involving fructose syrup. The basic narrative of Unfrosted serves as the foundation for a cameo-filled series of sketches and bits in which the most brilliant brains in the food industry come together to dream big in the midst of a very shady world of sugar cartels, milkman syndicates, and a computer that can predict people’s deaths. The development of a sentient ravioli is one of the subplots. You’re thinking of Oppenheimer dressed as Anchorman, that’s right.
This unbridled absurdity is channeled into a series of tests and experiments akin to the Space Race; opinions on whether the outcomes are lighthearted fun or irritatingly bizarre will undoubtedly differ. Even though the jokes are sporadic, they happen frequently. Seinfeld deftly establishes the movie as a comedy machine, acting more like a collection of sketches than a traditional motion picture. He also makes sure that the pace never slows down and stays away from tedious irrelevant topics like “the truth.” In the role of Shakespearean actor-turned-Tony The Tiger Thurl Ravenscroft, Hugh Grant plays a lesser version of his Paddington 2 icon Phoenix Buchanan; Jon Hamm delivers a brilliant cameo that we won’t reveal; and Seinfeld leans into his typical gregarious persona. Melissa McCarthy plays brainbox “Stan.”
Seinfeld’s genuine affection for Pop-Tarts and their significance to him, rather than the film’s cleverest moment (a funeral attended by solemn cereal characters), is what keeps Unfrosted together, regardless of how well the jokes work. This makes the film more than simply a Pop-Tart; rather, it’s a Pop-Tart movie with no nutritional value that is warm and delicious to the very last bite.