Overall Rating
  Awesome: 6.98%
Worth A Look: 3.49%
Average: 8.14%
Pretty Bad: 17.44%
Total Crap: 63.95%
6 reviews, 50 user ratings
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| Date Movie |
by William Goss
"Date Scrape"
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From two of the six writers behind the 'Scary Movie' films comes 'Date Movie,' or 'When Harry Met Mr. & Mrs. Smith at My Legally Blonde Best Friend’s Big Fat Greek Wedding in Sweet Home Alabama, which was Crashed by King Kong, Shallow Hal, Napoleon Dynamite, and Bridget Jones as Hitch discovered What Women Want: How To Say Anything To Lose A Guy In Ten Days whenever they Meet the Parents and Kill Bill.' I just saved you ten bucks and eighty minutes.Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the above-mentioned writers, share the helm of their debut feature in their mission to mercilessly lampoon romantic comedies. Okay, so any comedies will do. Wait, just movies in general. How about a few TV shows and celebrities for good measure? After all, what screams 'rom-com spoof' more than appearances by Lil’ Jon and parodies of Pimp My Ride and Paris Hilton commercials?
The basic premise follows the transformation of Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan) from an overweight spinster-to-be to a bombshell that wins the heart of Grant Fonckyerdoder (Adam Campbell). On this shaky foundation, Friedberg and Seltzer start to chuck in as many jokes as possible and win the audience over with their go-for-broke spirit. Most parodies suffer from a scattershot delivery, and when a joke hits, it’s a redeemable nugget amongst many that miss. However, such abandon soon goes from winning to waning, as the film’s material begins to run thin within an hour, resulting in increasingly desperate and decreasingly relevant humor.
While the film manages to incorporate several tangents in a less cumbersome manner (recurring cheap shots at Jennifer Lopez’s The Wedding Planner and Will Smith’s Hitch come to mind), the inclusion of something like Michael Jackson lusting after the kiddies fails to be justified as anything other than filler. Even when the pair’s parents are supposedly modeled on Meet the Fockers, Eddie Griffin shows up as Julia’s pop (she's white; he's black and Greek!), while the usually dependable Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge make a lazy effort to fill in the Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand roles. In fact, the meeting of the parents does provide one of the more amusing moments, a literal throwaway gag one could blink and miss. However, that is a joke of physical comedy, not of true parody, something the filmmakers tend to forget. When the going gets dull, it is usually due to a weak imitation of assorted stale references. I mean, why make fun of something if the bit in question was pretty funny five years ago, right?
Truth be told, no matter how dire things get, Hannigan seems more than willing to take on even the most outlandish scenes. Besides, there's nothing like that redhead in a certain yellow jumpsuit to keep your eyes on the screen. The entire time Hannigan's on screen, there is a regular confidence, a sense that she never forgets exactly what she is playing at, a vibe that newcomer Campbell seems to lack. Even for a rom-com crush, he seems somewhat uncomfortable in a position of constant ridicule. Between that, his mediocre looks, and an useless accent (even if it’s his actual accent, it distracts instead of adding to the role), Campbell comes across as an ill fit for the character, a mere shade of leading man. Sharing the initial billing is Carmen Electra, which is quite peculiar, considering her rather minute participation in an obviously tacked-on finale involving a certain monkey movie. (No, not Curious George, but that other one.)To be fair, the comedy is not without its morsels. While it is quite refreshing to see a reference to indie documentary 'Rize' (something creative AND recent, although still not a date movie), chances are that the majority of moviegoers will be slouched down far enough for the joke to zoom right over their heads, with room to spare. However, one of the earliest laughs turns out to be somewhat foreboding in hindsight: in reaction to the obese Julia arriving on the sidewalk, a construction worker puts a nail gun to his head and shoots himself. At least that got to the point. Besides, how much fun is a nail to the brain if the hammer is swinging wildly and misses nearly every time? Rarely does it hit the nail on its head, yet every other blow still lands in the vicinity, and that ain't a pretty picture.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=14011&reviewer=409
originally posted: 02/17/06 17:51:15
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USA
17-Feb-2006 (PG-13)
DVD: 30-May-2006
UK
24-Feb-2006
Australia
16-Feb-2006
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