‘Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain’ Review: The Latest Proof That Sketch Comedy Works Best in Small Doses

Frank Scheck
·3 min read

If you’re wondering about the ungainly title of the new comedy film premiering on Peacock, then you’re probably not a sketch comedy aficionado or regular Saturday Night Live viewer. The first part of Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain refers to the comedy group consisting of 20-somethings Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy, whose absurdist videos have been a regular feature on SNL for the past couple of years. The second part of the title calls to mind the sort of old-fashioned adventure movies geared toward kids that have inspired this ramshackle spoof reminding you that sketch comedy is best appreciated in small doses. For proof, look no further than such misfires as Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy, It’s Pat, MacGruber and, well, you get the idea.

Written by the trio, directed by SNL veteran Paul Briganti and produced by Judd Apatow, Foggy Mountain mainly makes you think that they’ve all watched The Goonies far too many times. The Please Don’t Destroy performers play characters named Martin, John and Ben (using different names was apparently too much of a stretch), childhood friends who now all work together at Trout Plus, the big-box sporting goods store run by Ben’s short-tempered dad (played by Conan O’Brien, who single-handedly elevates the level of the proceedings with his hilariously surly line readings).

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The silly storyline revolves around the overgrown adolescents deciding to attempt to find a golden bust of Marie Antoinette that was stolen many years ago by a “French naval explorer” and hidden on the titular mountain in a state park, with clues left behind for intrepid treasure hunters. We learn this from the film’s familiar-voiced narrator, who introduces himself thusly, “I’m John Goodman, from The Big Lebowski and a ton of other shit.”

That pretty much gives you an idea of the film’s humor, which leans heavily toward goofiness and the sort of strained raunchiness that allows for not one but two major gags revolving around one of the characters inadvertently exposing his penis. Along the way, the trio have would-be comic run-ins with a malevolent hawk, a hairless bear, a pair of feisty park rangers (comedian-actors Meg Stalter and X Mayo) and a weird mountain cult whose leader is played by SNL regular Bowen Yang.

While the group’s short SNL videos are often quite amusing, this feature-length venture doesn’t do them any favors. Their slacker, doofus personas lack the charm of Adam Sandler, whose films are an obvious influence (Herlihy’s father, Tim, is a longtime Sandler collaborator), and genuine wit is in short supply. When the trio discover via a clue that they must be “in harmony” to find the treasure, they wind up, what else, breaking into song and dance.

As with many of Sandler’s films, this one features a bizarre celebrity cameo. But the appearance of Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things doesn’t pay off in comic terms, and won’t erase anyone’s memories of Bob Barker giving Sandler a vicious beatdown in Happy Gilmore.

The Please Don’t Destroy guys are clearly in tune with their target audience — a slapstick fight sequence is set to the jaunty strains of Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks” — and, humor being all too subjective, many will no doubt find their offbeat antics hilarious. But it will probably help to be young, dumb and baked.

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