Grade: D-
Directed by: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
I enjoy all sorts of movies. I'm not one of those snobbish movie critics that falls in love with art house films. I like films that the Average Joe enjoys and will pay money to see. That being said, I can't recall the last time that I gave a movie a D- rating, so please understand that a movie has to be completely awful in order to receive this grade. What's a true shame is, on opening weekend,
Epic Movie was the top-grossing film, so there are, no doubt, a lot of other disappointed theatergoers.
The story starts out by introducing us to four orphans: Lucy (
Jayma Mays), Peter (
Adam Campbell), Edward (
Kal Penn) and Susan (
Faune A Chambers). These character names might sound somewhat familiar if you've read or saw
The Chronicles of Narnia. In their introduction, each of the children is part of another movie:
Snakes on a Plane,
X-Men,
The DaVinci Code and
Nacho Libre. Each child stumbles on a stroke of luck - they find golden tickets to visit Willie Wonka at his chocolate factory.
Willie Wonka turns out to be a serious nutcase, wanting to put parts of little children in all of his candy. The children escape into a wardrobe and enter the land of Gnarnia. At this point, the story sort of follows
The Chronicles of Narnia, but it also becomes quite vulgar and adolescent. Edward meets up with the White "Witch" (
Jennifer Coolidge) in a quick tribute to the
American Pie series, and all of the children then meet an ancient Harry Potter, Captain Jack Swallows (think
Pirates of the Carribean), Flavor Flav, James Bond and Aslo (
Fred Willard).
Honestly, it is difficult to catch all the movies and TV shows that are spoofed (including
Borat, M-TV's
Cribs,
Punk'd,
Click and
Superman Returns). Most of the time, the spoofs were horrible. The best ones were quick, one-liners (such as the introduction to
Coolidge, when Edward says, "Whoa. Stiffler's mom!") or a quick flash of a White Castle hamburger stand (
Penn starred in
Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle). You also are treated to cameos from
Carmen Electra (Mystique) and
David Carradine (the museum curator).
The humor, however, gets rather cyclical and the same joke is told over and over again, to the point where you, the viewer, are left rolling your eyes and desperately waiting for the film to end. There are much, much better spoof movies out there, including
Spaceballs (1987),
Airplane! (1980) and
Shrek (2001). So, if you need a good laugh, go out and rent something hilarious. Don't waste your money here.
The only thing that saved
Epic Movie from earning a well-deserved F was the fact that I smiled a few times and laughed once.
Epic Movie is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language and some comic violence. The film runs a long, tedious 86 minutes. Incidentally, the PG-13 rating is perfect, because 13 is the right age for target viewers, as they'd likely be the only ones to enjoy such asinine tripe.
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Columnist's note: Coolidge's character is not called the White Witch, rather, she is called something else, but I had to substitute a W for a B due to YourHub.com's profanity filter.