A Million Ways to Die in the West reads like a novelisation of a Bob Hope film which is odd because it’s actually a novelisation of a Seth MacFarlane film. Seriously though if this film had been made in the 1950’s there would’ve been only one actor up for consideration for the lead: Bob Hope. No comedian has ever got as much mileage out of playing the coward. His signature heroic coward starred in film after film like The Princess and the Pirate, Casanova's Big Night and The Paleface wisecracking his way out of every tight situation until he’s eventually backed into a corner and forced to draw off the bravery that’s been buried within him all the time, at which point he gets the girl and the film’s pretty much over. It’s predictable. But there can be fun in predictability. It’s like on TV when the guest star walks on stage with a cream pie in his hand. You know it’s going to go in someone’s face. You just don’t know how exactly it’s going to play out. But you would be disappointed if someone didn’t get a pie in the face.