by Derek VanLeenen
With the unexpected success of horror movies this past year, it seemed just about time for another Scary movie. But with the collapse of Scary movie 2, Miramax knew they needed to take a different direction with this installment. So they called in David Zucker (Airplane!, Naked Gun), to save the franchise. Unfortunately, much like Scary movie 2, the laughs we get at the beginning of the movie turn to shock as many of the jokes push the limit.

The movie starts out fantastic, with a great scene between Jenny McCarthy and Pamela Anderson. There is quick one-liners, bad puns and object jokes that work for everyone. Unfortunately, the movie loses its flare once we see the same sorts of jokes over and over and over again. It seems that the writers of this movie had good ideas that worked for audiences, but decided they would play them up and use the same ideas for the whole movie.

Zucker made this a sort of “all-star-spoof” cast to try and attract more audience, so he brought in Charlie Sheen (Hot Shots!) and spoof god Leslie Nielson (Naked Gun). Don’t get me wrong, the actors in this movie are very funny, and all have great comedic timing, there’s just too much going on in this movie to feature any of them. It’s sort of hit-or-miss, keep a few jokes for repeating, but then throw out hundreds more one after the other. There is so much going on that some ideas get forgotten. For instance, this movie was reported as a Lord of the Rings spoof, but the only Lord of the Rings moment that occurred, was at the beginning of the movie. It was then changed later on, and there is no mention of what happened. It seems like the writers forgot about a joke they had and either added it later or lost track of it completely.

I truly wish this had been more of an 80’s, early 90’s type spoof flick. As time goes by it seems we as society get more and more desensitized to what we see in movies, and studios try to capitalize on that. They add shock value to movies that, in some cases, are very funny (à la American Pie). But in other cases, like this movie, leave us disgusted. Would somebody please tell the Wayans brothers that having a joke where a priest implies he is going to abuse a child, is not funny? I heard more of a collective gasp out of the audience than a laugh. This happened many times throughout the movie. Stop the controversy, bring the humor.

I know it was too much to expect a lot out of this movie, but I did. I wanted to see why it was a success, why so many people would watch it. It made me realize that as a movie, this is one of the worst of the year, but as an escape, it really lets us forget about everything and laugh. That is the beauty of comedies, some of them can be smart, but others can be dumb and they are just as good. This is one of those movies that draws you in with a great opening, and you are so entertained by the first scene that you will be entertained throughout the rest. As a movie, this is a horrible film but as an escape, it does entertain you. Then again, so would watching a highway and waiting for a car accident, and it wouldn’t cost $10.

Derek VanLeenen


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