Will Ferrell's latest attempt at comedy, The Hawk, has arrived with all the grace of a shanked drive into the rough. Ferrell plays a brash ladies' man and loser golfer - a role that, in theory, could have been hilarious. But as a new review from The Guardian points out, comedy has evolved over the last two decades, and all the genital gags and dodgy references land with a thud rather than a laugh.

In the 2000s, American comedy had a rude awakening. The preceding decade was all attractive sophisticates bantering in big cities, but the new millennium arrived in a miasma of crude, cartoonish buffoonery: Austin Powers, American Pie, Dude, Where's My Car? These were, sadly, the sacred texts of a millennial adolescence. Against that backdrop, the work of the Frat Pack - Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Seth Rogen, Luke and Owen Wilson, plus writer-director Judd Apatow - seemed almost highbrow. By mid-decade, they had funneled ribald irreverence into better films like Zoolander, Dodgeball, and Anchorman. But eventually, the worm turned; as chin-stroking dramedy and nerdy Marvel wisecracking took hold, this PC-needling silliness fell out of fashion. The Hawk, it seems, is a relic from a bygone era, and not even Ferrell's signature mania can save it from feeling like a museum piece.