Product: Date Movie [UMD for PSP] (2006)
Rating: 2.0
This Date Stood Me Up
I'm all for a good laugh. I'm all for a fun parody. The classics began with the Zucker brothers and their classics with The Naked Gun and Airplane movies. The best. The Scary Movie franchises rolled in and became the top gun. I like those ones, although with decreasing interest with each installment. Now we get this one. Obviously, the romantic comedy/date movie was ripe for it's own send up, but this one isn't it. The movie has being plugged as from being by "2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie". After watching the movie, it was all too apparent that they needed the other 4 writers. There was only one part in the entire movie(and the end credits kicked in at the 72 minute mark)that made me laugh. I am not proud of it, but I will get to that later. So, what do we have here?. A misguided and mostly unfunny affair that's only sole saving grace is the presence of the undeniably charming and adorable Alyson Hannigan. She plays Julia Jones, a rather repulsive girl on the "quite heavy" side. She is love lorn and looking for the right guy. It's not happening. She meets up with a love doctor named Hitch(played by Tony Cox), who transforms her into a beauty and helps her get onto a Bachelor type show where she meets her Prince Charming. The rest is basically scenes taped together with not much of a story. Oh, of course, I forgot. He has an ex that wants him back. Yada yada. The movie has a more than adequate cast. Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge, who I adore, both pop in and make the most of their roles, which spoof those of Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand in "Meet The Fockers". Oh, did I mention Prince Charming's name?. Never mind. It's too obvious. Elsewhere, Eddie Griffin plays Hannigan's dad(don't ask), and Mad TV alumni Josh Meyers pops in twice as Owen Wilson and Napoleon Dynamite. A few of the movies they spoof either don't fit, or seem too over-dated to carry much weight for anyone to really care. Other times the jokes and spoofs come and feel so unconnected and pointless with everything else that's going on. That's not fun or funny. It's just annoying. What was spoofed here?. Meet The Fockers, Kill Bill, The Lord Of The Rings, King Kong, Napoleon Dynamite, My Best Friend's Wedding, and so on. So, what about that one part that made me laugh?. Well, not surprisingly, it's bathroom humor at the lowest level. It's spoofing the cat Jinx from the Meet The Parents movies, and how the De Niro character trained him to use a toilet. Uh huh. I think you know where this is going. The cat is walked in on during a rather strenuous trip to the latrine. I laughed. I'll admit it, but shamefully. There is still something about that kind of low brow humor that draws a chuckle(or a hearty laugh). Something like that will still have a place in us. As Rogert Ebert once said, "May I never lose it". This scene pretty much tells you everything about the movie when the funniest part is an animatronic cat having a major bowel movement on the can.