‘Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain’ review: Sure, why not?
Making the jump from sketch comedy to a feature-length film is a tough nut to crack. How do you take premises perfect for a short format and sustain them for well over an hour without them getting stale? Many films — especially those based on Saturday Night Live characters — have tried, with results varying from comedy classics to total abominations. For every Wayne’s World, there’s an It’s Pat. For every Blues Brothers, there’s a Blues Brothers 2000.
Now, comedy trio Please Don’t Destroy steps up to the plate with Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, in an attempt to turn the success of their SNL digital shorts and viral sketches into movie magic. Unlike the aforementioned movies, The Treasure of Foggy Mountain finds itself with a little more creative freedom than showcasing breakout SNL characters and all their biggest hits. Please Don’t Destroy sketches almost always see members Martin Herlihy, John Higgins, and Ben Marshall playing themselves, which is to say SNL writers with an exaggerated reputation as losers. (Their most-viewed SNL sketch has Taylor Swift roasting them as “Three Sad Virgins.”) But even then, they’re mostly blank canvases for strange things to happen to. The humor in their sketches comes more from how efficiently and absurdly they escalate even the simplest of premises rather than some intrinsic nature of the characters themselves.
Please Don’t Destroy seems to recognize that sense of freedom with The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, which sees the three trade their SNL office for the great outdoors and an epic quest for hidden riches. What follows is an adventure about friendship, growing up, and how great Bowen Yang would be as a cult leader. The journey comes with its fair share of laughs and nicely fleshes out their comedic personas. However, it still falls prey to classic sketch movie pitfalls, including the struggle to maintain momentum beyond just funny bits.
What is Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain about?
The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (re)introduces us to Martin (Herlihy), John (Higgins), and Ben (Marshall). Friends since middle school, these three live together and work together at Ben’s dad’s (Conan O’Brien) camping store. But their longterm friendship may be on the outs. Neither Ben nor Martin are satisfied with the directions of their lives. Ben wants to make his disapproving father proud and solidify himself as heir to the store, while Martin worries that he doesn’t have enough money to sufficiently provide for his girlfriend (Nichole Sakura), whose very religious lifestyle is also giving him some doubts. John, sensing his friends’ anxieties, decides that there’s only one way to heal their years-long bond: with a treasure hunt.
Armed with nothing but a mysterious compass and the legend of a treasure buried somewhere on Foggy Mountain, our heroes set off into the great unknown, hoping to become rich beyond their wildest dreams. Little do they know that their total lack of survival skills will be the least of their worries. Freaky bears, treasure-seeking park rangers (Megan Stalter and X Mayo), and a dangerous cult are just a taste of what stands between these three and glory.
Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain is full of laughs — and stamina issues.
Given Please Don’t Destroy’s track record, it’s no surprise that The Treasure of Foggy Mountain is a funny flick. Stand-outs include the most unserious opening quote ever and a running gag about a bizarre bird call. Every performer is game as well, from the central trio to Yang as cult leader Deetch Nordwind. Stalter, furthering her status as a screwball comedian, also gets her moment in the spotlight with an improvised song that had me cringing through my laughter.
Director Paul Briganti maintains the energy of Please Don’t Destroy’s usual sketches with the help of some fast-paced editing and frenetic camera movement. This sense of speed means that many of The Treasure of Foggy Mountain‘s jokes sneak up out of nowhere, similar to the off-the-wall twists from their short-form work. Often, these jokes are as deeply stupid as they are surprising — but in a film full of hawk battles and sad drunken wingsuit flights, stupid is most definitely welcome.
However, Please Don’t Destroy’s propulsive comedy stylings prove to be a curse as well as a blessing. We’re off to the races right from the start, with hardly any peaks and valleys when it comes to pacing. Because of this, much of the film feels like a series of sketches strung together, instead of a cohesive whole. Here’s a sketch where the boys get to sing. Here’s one where a drunk alter ego comes out to rage. Inevitably, some are hits, while others are misses.
Often, these sequences fall into a pattern: One member of the trio does or says something weird, the other two freak out. Rinse and repeat. It’s a format that works well in individual sketches, but when it happens time and time again in quick succession, it risks feeling strained.
The Treasure of Foggy Mountain works best when it allows itself time to breathe between all its crazy hijinks. The latter half of the movie is stronger than the first, as Martin, John, and Ben reckon with what this treasure hunt has done to them and their friendship. (Is the treasure really more important than the friends they made along the way?) These scenes mark crucial development for the three characters and also let the trio sink into more dramatic work — a nice change from their heightened, sketchier roles. From there, the film is able to jump into its gonzo third act with heightened emotional stakes that make even the dumbest of gags hit harder.
Ultimately, that’s what The Treasure of Foggy Mountain is: pure dumb fun, albeit with some awkward dead spots. As far as sketch-adjacent films go, it’s nowhere near the worst, but it’s not quite the best either. If anything, it’s continued proof of the limitations of the sketch-turned-film format, albeit proof that will have you giggling for most of its (short) runtime.
Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain is now streaming on Peacock.