It’s rare for me to watch something and just come away from it utterly bewildered, completely unsure of how I felt about it. However, this is what happened with The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience, a new 30-minute special on Netflix that dubs itself as a “visual album.” To say that this is strange and out there is an understatement. My basic reaction throughout the whole thing was just…”what.”

The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience was made by The Lonely Island, a group of comedy musicians that originated on Saturday Night Live and went on to make some comedy albums together. I’ve actually always been a huge fan of The Lonely Island, so I was pretty excited about this. This movie/short/special (whatever you want to call it) is basically just a concept album, which was then shot to have visuals going on with it. There isn’t really a “story” here, per se. Rather, it centers on the Bash Brothers, who were a famous duo in baseball in the 80s. The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience imagines that the Bash Brothers created a rap album that was never released, and so that’s what this is. The experience is essentially just an album of songs set to funny scenes, with some occasional scenes in between the songs. It’s a bit hard to describe, which is why I think “visual album” is the best label for it.

This is just such a unique and weird experience. After I finished watching it, I just thought to myself that I honestly don’t know what to say in a review for it. I don’t even know if I liked the thing or not. I’m happy to have experienced it, but I also don’t plan on ever watching it again. The only people that I actually would recommend it to are fellow Lonely Island fans, but even then I can’t guarantee you’ll like it, since it’s pretty out there.

I think the important thing here is that I did laugh during it quite a bit, even if half of the time it was because what I was watching was so fucking random. I think this is a good indicator that I did like it, even if it’s not in a conventional way. It’s just hard to give it a numerical number rating, because I don’t feel like I can judge it using the same parameters that I normally do for movies. The “visual album” format is a unique thing that I wouldn’t mind seeing more of, but because it was so bizarre I don’t know what kind of value to place on it. I feel like it’s simultaneously amazing and stupid all at once, so I don’t know what that means for rating it. That’s all I feel like I can really say about this. You can feel free to dismiss my review for “not getting it” or whatever, but I genuinely feel like I’m at a loss for words here, which I’m not used to.

3.5/5