Film Review: The product might be real, but Unfrosted is an irreverent spoof

Jerry Seinfeld, Fred Armisen, Jim Gaffigan, and Melissa McCarthy in Unfrosted

• Unfrosted
• ★★☆☆☆
• Netflix

Unfrosted (12A) stars Jerry Seinfeld as Bob Cabana, the marketing manager for Kellogg’s in the early 1960s as the company gears up to meet the threat posed by their breakfast cereal rivals Post, where the embryonic Pop Tart (still yet to be named as such) is in pre-production. 

Joining forces with his old sparring partner and genius cereal inventor Donna Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy), Bob sets out to beat Post to the punch.

The product might be real, but Unfrosted is an irreverent spoof of the rash of recent movies about popular brands (Founder, Blackberry, Air, etc) that plays out like an episode of Scooby-Doo.

The cameos and minor roles are the best thing about it: Jon Hamm turns up as an advertising exec in full-on Mad Men mode, and Christian Slater and Peter Dinklage as evil milkmen, although the best of the lot is Hugh Grant playing the Shakespearean actor Thurl Ravenscroft, aka Tony the Tiger (he’s grrrrrrrreat!).