The Preview Review
The series continues without its spark plugs The Wayans Brothers. Casting a
collective of B-rate miscreants like CHarlie Sheen and Simon Rex, I'm sure much
hilarity is due to ensue.
Full Review
Prologue: This is a preview screening review. While they may be able to improve this movie. I doubt it. When the movie is "officially" released, I will reassess the situation.
The Scary Movie series has lost its creators The Wayans Family Conglomerate of Mostly Brothers. Is it much of a loss? Well I assumed the series had been emptied of its steam by #2. But #3 has promise built into it. David Zucker, one of the innovators of the spoof genre and the reason a movie like Scary Movie could get made, got involved as director. This is the man responsible for Airplane! and the first two Naked Guns But sadly no boost in humor or intelligence, or slivers of watchable film could be drained from this material.
The original Scary Movie was released at the perfect point, the backlash apex against the teen/ horror/ teen horror genres were running rampant. For the sake of this review, we’ll call it the Freddy Prinze Era of F.P.E. About 1998, movies like the Freddy Prinze Trilogy of I Know What You Did Last Summer, She’s All That and the irrepressibly brilliant I Still Know What You Did Last Summer was ruling cinema screens across the nation along with a collection of like-minded copycat shit storms. Some alright possibilities were released like 10 Things I Hate About You. But there was Scream. The movie that sparked the genre and was worthy of being sparked but by its sequel that series had lost its steam. Still the logic makes sense, if they can make Scream 3, why can’t they make Scary Movie 3?
What is wrong with this movie? There is just so much to say but a limit on the amount of breath I’m willing to waste pondering a movie like this. As per usual, the B list stars are in abundance. People of some popularity but usually outshined by many others. Besides, the clueless bitch from the original 2 installments, who cares what her name is because hopefully she’ll never have another acting job in her lifetime. There’s Simon Rex, playing a part as a look-alike Joaquin Phoenix. Some token African American parts given to Eddie Griffin and Queen Latifah playing some Matrix-related roles. Charlie Sheen has a role spoofing Mel Gibson in Signs. Many forget Sheen has had some of his most memorable roles in comedies like Major League or even the oft forgotten Hot Shots series.
The majority of the film’s spoofs are derived from The Ring, Signs and The Matrix/Matrix Reloaded. Each individual scene is diluted, repetitive, and makes it obvious that the write has never even seen these movies. He barely made it through the previews and maybe the first ten minutes of The Ring. The popularity of these movies came from the timeliness. Capitalizing as previously mentioned or the teen and horror crazes, Scream and Blair Witch. That timeliness is completely lost and there is no edge. The humor is blunt, potty-centric and not even one minute of the less than 90 minutes felt remotely original. The movie is a quick shabbily executed hodge podge trying to even connect multiple story lines. A true spoofer wouldn’t even worry about story lines. He’s actually trying to take the separate spoofs and mesh them together and completely fails. It’s a very hard task indeed. One that probably shouldn’t have been undertaken.
My main issue with Scary Movie 3 is its overabundance of spoofs and just trying to stuff the most jokes in it can. I understand spoofing 8 Mile, it’s something that could come out highly amusing but what does 8 Mile have to do with the horror genre. This series was created to spoof the teen genre but now but now its still young characters are expected to be older. You’d think with age comes minimal maturity. You’d be wrong. These characters maturity clocks are prepubescent, its like a collective of young Leslie Nielsens who happens to have a role in this film. Every joke is about sex, excrements or banging their head. Inference is lost. Subtlety is lost. Gross out in and unfunny.
Some of the spoofs just seemed rushed and so general, like a final sequence featuring an awful version of the Hulk. The Matrix: Reloaded Spoof which replicates the ghetto area playground battle scene just doesn’t work and doesn’t seem interesting in the movie at all and the movie itself just ends. There is just nothing there. It’s a rushed glom of junk trying to be finished by Halloween time.
Scary Movie 3 does not fulfill on any part of what its supposed to do or any promise it might have had. All it does is further dampen the reputation of a series and add stupidity to each scene while continually proving the series old, stale and worthless just like the horror genre its supposed to be spoofing. The blame is to be placed on Miramax who never seems to get it. They don't take hints and don't know when it's time to end the series. Even an opening scene with Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy in Catholic school girl uniforms with lesbian undertones couldn’t save this movie. That’s a sad, sad tale.
Rating: 1 out of 4 stars
Reviewed by: Airo
Running Time: Around 90 minutes
Rated R for violence and language.
Starring: Charlie Sheen,
Simon Rex, Jeremy Piven, Anna Faris.
Written by: Craig Mazin
Directed by: David Zucker (Airplane!, Naked Gun Series)
Take
another Stab at the original Scary Movie
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