What was once fresh is now old and tired

Rating: 3/10 (5 June 2011)

* out of (****)
It was inevitable. A sequel to a financial succession that jump-started the spoof genre back in 2000. However, with disappointing box office revenues and harsh criticism, it goes to show many people did not like "Scary Movie 2". I am not one of those people. I HATED it. The opening for "Scary Movie 2" starts with a bang and is just very loud and eccentric, but with reasonable intentions. From there, it gradually goes downhill and by the third act, you just want to be done with this movie. The fact that the IMDb average score is 4.8, Rotten Tomatoes has it a dead 15%, and Metacritic has it at a 29% should really tell you something.
First off, the performers are just tried and annoying to say the least. In the original, they were fun, zany characters that just had something that clicked with the audience. Not in here. Furthermore, the story just goes nowhere. Going from scary movies to a random basketball showdown to a Charlie's Angels fight, it's all just sloppy and feels like the filmmakers just throw a bunch of random bologna and saw what could stick. The verdict is none. Hey, at least the first had a plot, albeit a shallow one, that you could easily follow and it would actually be a story.
To top it off, when your comedy falls dead flat on its face when it comes to jokes, then you know you did something wrong. The jokes are gross, in-your-face, and top each other in terms of raunchiness, but they are tired, dead, and truly redundant. I'll use a quote from critic Michael Phillips. You won't hear crickets in the audience. You'll hear dead crickets.
And lastly, this movie is just boring. While the original was not a good movie, it at least held my interest. This was just such a drag.
All in all, "Scary Movie 2" just doesn't miss the mark, it misses the target completely. They can throw all the gross-out gags and random penises at the screen, but I could care less. I need a fresh, hot script and some good performers to make the movie. If you fail on those accounts, your movie fails. What was once fresh and hip, is now just old, tired, and begs the question, "why?". I think the filmmakers got the title right this time. This movie is scary, because it isn't funny and just terrible to watch.