Comedic satire has long been an important part of the literary canon. Ancient civilizations gave us Aristophanes, Menippus and Ovid.
Voltaire, in the mid-18th century composed Candide, a stinging portrait of the political religious atmosphere of the times, and centuries later Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest continues to thrill and entertain.
The cinema, too, has not gone without contributions from various satires. Classics such as Young Frankenstein, The Princess Bride, Army of Darkness and Men in Tights have been lending important commentary to their perspective genres for decades.
More recently, the Scary Movie dynasty has offered its own observations on the current state of the horror film category.
Though the first two films of the increasingly inaccurately named Scary Movie trilogy (Scary Movie 4 is slated for release on April 14) are pitifully flawed, the third installment was an impressively entertaining and insightful caricature of the modern horror film, thanks in large to the addition of Leslie Nielsen (2001: A Space Travesty).
Undoubtedly due to the film’s success, two of its writers decided, for their next project, to try their hands at satirizing the romantic comedy.
It was apparently a really bad decision.
Writers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who collaborated on the Scary Movies as well Spy Hard, the 1996 spoof of assorted spy/heist/crime/et cetera films, make their directorial debut with Date Movie.
Date Movie, which was released on the 17th of this month, operated within the basic framework of some combination of Meet the Fockers, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Shallow Hal in order to tell the story of Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan, American Pie 1/2/Wedding), an ogre of a girl who sets out to find her true love.
With a little help from Hitch and the boys from Pimp My Ride, Julia is able to snag her man. Now she just needs to plan her wedding and make both families get along.
The saddest part of the film’s utter and dismal failure as any sort of entertainment is that it started out with some potential for enjoyability. Unfortunately, the parts that might have been funny were very simply overdone to the point of being either boring or repulsive.
Gross-out humor has its value, of course, but the viewer needs to be physiologically able and willing to watch the scene in order to appreciate it.
While I suppose some people might think otherwise, bestial necrophilia is not my idea of a good time.
The story is predictable. The writing is less than clever. The filmmaking is amateurish, and the directors definitely need to rethink their strategies before stepping behind the camera again.
Despite all odds, Date Movie somehow succeeded at being worse than the films that it attempted to mock. Save your money and go rent Saw II. It’s funnier.
Love me? Hate me? I’d like to know.
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