Date Movie

Date Movie
Directors: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
Written by Friedberg and Seltzer
20th Century Fox

At one point in this parody movie Alyson Hannigan's character Julia Jones gets an electric shock and can read people's thoughts, a la What Women Want. She thinks to herself, "It's like I'm in some bad Mel Gibson movie." Sorry honey, Mel Gibson has never made a movie as bad as this.

The directorial debut of writers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (Spy Hard and the first three Scary Movies), this is the kind of movie that is outrageous due to the fact that these guys get to work in Hollywood and make tons more money than me. It is one of the most un-realized, shoddy pieces of crap I've ever seen.

Come on, Chris, this is all in fun! It's supposed to be stupid! It's just a movie! Lighten up! I would have to smoke the fattest, juiciest blunt in all of Amsterdam and suck nitrous oxide from a garden hose to force a giggle. You know that episode of "The Simpsons" where Bart gets a gig on Krusty's show saying, "I didn't do it?" Remember what happens when the joke gets old and there's a polite giggle from one of a hundred people? That's this movie. Bart's following, "Woozle Wuzzle," is funnier than this entire movie.

Usually, even in the worst of parody comedies, there's at least something you can laugh at. Like in Spy Hard, Weird Al Yankovic's title theme was funny--but I doubt you can give credit to Friedberg or Seltzer on that. These guys obviously grew up loving the Airplanes! and the Naked Guns and dreamed that they could match the Zucker Brothers. But just throwing the kitchen sink on every gag doesn't work--and the way it is filmed and edited is atrocious. There are jokes piled on top of other jokes that have absolutely no context--and no, I'm not talking about random gags that just pop up out of nowhere, I'm talking about the setup, the delivery, and the punchline--many fail to have even 2 of the 3. Considering the punchlines are often as tired as George Washington on a Barcalounger after three glasses of milk, a bottle of sleeping pills, and a Thanksgiving turkey, it doesn't really matter. Cliche is a bad medium to work in when you do parodies--here's yet another movie that makes fun of Michael Jackson as a child molester.

I don't give star ratings, but if I were to start today I would still have yet to give a star rating. It's awful, one of the worst of the aughts and we have three Uwe Boll films, Cat in the Hat, A Sound of Thunder, and The Brown Bunny to compare it.