Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain Review

Last Updated on November 22, 2023

Plot: The adventure of Ben, Martin, and John, three childhood friends turned deadbeat co-workers, who fend off hairless bears, desperate park rangers, and a hypocritical cult leader in the hopes of finding a priceless treasure, only to discover that finding the treasure is the easiest part of their journey.

Review: After achieving success with YouTube sketches during the COVID-19 pandemic, the trio known as Please Don’t Destroy joined Saturday Night Live in 2021 to produce digital shorts in the wake of The Lonely Island’s departure. After just two full seasons under their belt, Please Don’t Destroy has been given a feature film platform for their comedy. Following in the footsteps of countless movies from SNL veterans over the last forty years, Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain is premiering on Peacock, the perfect platform for this strange odyssey of ideas forced together into the semblance of a movie. While far from the worst movie from SNL cast members, it is also nowhere near the best. Full of strange jokes and a couple of well-placed performances from Conan O’Brien and Bowen Yang, Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain is a mess that plays like an overextended comedy short.

With pretty much all of the funniest moments featured in the trailer, you don’t need to dig too deeply to understand the plot of The Treasure of Foggy Mountain. Martin (Martin Herlihy), John (John Higgins), and Ben (Ben Marshall) are three friends who have known each other since elementary school. Now in their mid-twenties, the three live together and work at the outdoor supply store owned by Ben’s father (Conan O’Brien). Ben struggles to prove himself worthy of taking over the family business while Martin is preparing for a life with his girlfriend Amy (Nichole Sakura). That leaves Martin to spend his time alone, wallowing in losing his close friends to adulthood. When Martin is reminded of the local legend of a treasure hidden near Foggy Mountain, he wrangles his friends to go and find it. On the way, they run into a pair of park rangers (X Mayo and Megan Stalter), one of whom develops feelings for Martin. It then becomes a race to find the prize.

Once the treasure is found, the three run into a cult led by Deetch (Bowen Yang), which puts another group on the hunt for riches and fosters a rift between the friends. The film is narrated by John Goodman himself as he frequently breaks the fourth wall. The film is also broken into four sections, almost as if there was a consideration in making this into a limited series. Each chapter feels like a self-contained sketch that Please Don’t Destroy came up with and then connected with an overarching plot. Consumed in half-hour increments, this movie is much more palatable than it is as a feature film. In the full ninety-five-minute running time, some of the jokes feel repetitive and do not land, something that is a common occurrence in Please Don’t Destroy SNL sketches. More often than not, these guys have funny material that relies heavily on surreal and strange jokes delivered in a fast-paced manner. It wears a bit thin when broadening that from five minutes to one hundred.

There are some parts of the movie that worked for me, but they are sporadic and spread throughout the film. Conan O’Brien, who does not commonly act in movies, is funny as the crotchety dad, who is not as old as he acts. Bowen Yang is again the standout here, proving that his consistently hilarious roles on SNL are ripe for a big-screen role. Neither Yang nor O’Brien is in the movie as much as they should be, with most of the screen time led by Please Don’t Destroy. The chemistry and interplay between Ben, Martin, and John are clear, with John getting a bit more to do than the other two as the story hinges on his being the odd man out. Nevertheless, each of the three has a key moment to shine in the movie, which concludes with a third act stronger than the first two, including a cameo that is relevant enough to be weirdly funny. Because The Treasure of Foggy Mountain is debuting on Peacock, the streaming home for SNL and other NBC properties, there is greater freedom in what this film can do than had it hit the big screen.

Written by Herlihy, Marshall, and Higgins, Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain was directed by Paul Briganti. With eight years of experience directing segments on SNL and series like Adam Ruins Everything and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Briganti does not elevate this material to feeling very cinematic. However, the production values prevent it from feeling like a television series. There are some well-handled moments, including a fight sequence and the discovery of the treasure, as well as a montage over the credits that elicits some laughs. With Judd Apatow aboard as a producer, it is worth noting that longtime SNL showrunner Lorne Michaels has no involvement with this film. That should say a lot, as Michaels has had his name on everything from It’s Pat to The Ladies Man and Night at the Roxbury. Take that for what it’s worth, but I was surprised he didn’t shepherd three of his proteges in this effort.

Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain does not do justice to what makes the members of the title comedy troupe so funny in their short films. By stretching a thin premise to feature length, Please Don’t Destroy shows where the weakest parts of their material lie, and that is in character development and a cohesive narrative. So many moments in this movie are tailor-made for YouTube clips but suffer when you try to watch them as a long-form production. As much as I laughed at John Goodman’s narration and Bowen Yang’s over-the-top hilarity, there is not enough of her to warrant an additional viewing. Maybe this film is destined to be a cult classic, or maybe it will be relegated to more streaming platform filler.

Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain

NOT GOOD

4