A "comedy" so bad it demands creation of a negative-star rating system.
by Todd Gilchrist
August 29, 2008 - IGN can't give less than zero stars for a movie, but Disaster Movie deserves it. The latest "effort" from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the guys responsible for Date Movie, Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans, is yet another bottom-feeding cash-grab that exploits current events, ridicules pop culture icons and compromises the integrity of the zeitgeist itself in order to create, oh, one-quarter to one-half of a funny joke within the shortest possible time frame that qualifies as a theatrical release. And while Friedberg and Seltzer will be spared (for a few paragraphs at least) from shouldering the blame for this movie's crass, stupid and insulting existence, suffice it to say that I honestly believe that people who actively want to see garbage like Disaster Movie are directly responsible for the deterioration of American society as we know it.
Matt Lanter, who provides the poor impersonation of Hayden Christensen that serves as the voice of Anakin Skywalker in The Clone Wars, plays Will, a white guy who can't commit to his uber-hottie girlfriend Amy (Vanessa Minnillo) because he suffers from nightmares that the world will end. His worst fears are soon realized when his Super Sweet 16 birthday party is interrupted by meteors crashing down from the sky, but when he and Amy are stranded on opposite sides of town he charges into the city to rescue her. Soon, he and his friend Calvin (Gary "G-Thang" Johnson) cross paths with Calvin's comely girlfriend Lisa (Kim Kardashian), a pregnant, pop culture-charged teenager named Juney (Crista Flanagan), and an Enchanted Princess (Nicole Parker) as they race to save Amy from impending disaster.
I actually stopped documenting the movie's deluge of references after about 30 minutes, but here's a shortlist of some of the stuff that the Friedberg and Seltzer send up: 10,000 B.C., American Gladiators, Amy Winehouse, Facebook, Flava Flav, My Super Sweet 16, Dr. Phil, No Country For Old Men, Superbad/ McLovin, Angelina Jolie in Wanted, WWE Divas, Juno, High School Musical, Kanye West, the Jonas Brothers, the "Souljah Boy" dance, Justin Timberlake, Hannah Montana, Hancock, Sex and the City, Jumper, Step Up 2: The Streets, Twister (notice - the first actual disaster movie of the bunch), Hellboy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Cloverfield. Except for a five-minute belch from Amy Winehouse and an attack by metal-singing Alvin and co., I didn't laugh at any of this - and quite frankly, I'm fairly certain I was laughing at the film, not with it.
All of which actually brings up an important question: what exactly are we supposed to be laughing at? How badly done are the various impersonations and references? The desperation with which jokes are used to combine the backlot locations into a mock-up of an actual movie? Or even the simple recognition of some prominent person or event in recent history that the filmmakers deemed a noteworthy pop culture icon? Having a person dress up like Hannah Montana and then act like them is not funny, even if they are under a massive meteor, or projecting gaseous emissions for an extended period of time.
Perhaps the people I should pose these questions to are the filmmakers, as much as it pains me to credit them as "makers" of anything or mention them and any iteration of the word "film" in the same sentence. There is undeniable value in crafting smartly-executed (even if not actually smart) entertainment for a wide mainstream audience, but Disaster Movie is the kind of comedy where laughs go to die. I suppose I should credit them for at least not targeting the two most ubiquitous media whores in mainstream pop culture - Britney Spears and Paris Hilton - but how is it possible that self-proclaimed purveyors of genre parodies like Friedberg and Selzter are so uninformed about actual disaster movies that they couldn't put together a movie that actually makes fun of them?
Hm, let's see - The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, Airport (ok, already done), Twister, Independence Day, Deep Impact, Armageddon, Dante's Peak, Volcano, The Day After Tomorrow, and the Poseidon remake are the first dozen I can think of that they could have used, and without counting Cloverfield, which I think this film uses for its core story (but that could be a fortunate coincidence). It's quite frankly stultifying that Friedberg are Seltzer are ever let anywhere near a studio boardroom after having defecated out their previous movies, much less this one, but I suppose it's a small comfort that even Fox, who distributed the last three of their opuses, passed on this so that Lionsgate could get in on the mediocrity. (Although, seriously, this you put your marketing muscle behind, but you dump Midnight Meat Train and Repo?)
There's a part of me that wonders if Friedberg and Seltzer - much less the studio executives who reap the real profits - ever read reviews, or actually think that what they are doing is funny or remotely artistic. The very fact that these movies succeed is a reflection of the fact that audiences definitely do not read them or care about the longevity of the entertainment they support, even if their patronage is instrumental in lowering the bar for everyone and reducing the intellectual level of "mainstream" entertainment with each successive blockbuster. In which case, one more negative review probably isn't going to make much of a difference to the people who want to see it, or to the folks responsible for cranking these 90-minute punches in the face.
But make no mistake: Disaster Movie is godawful. Not because it's not deep or profound or lasting, or because it caters to the lowest common denominator. No, it's because this is what passes for entertainment, and what the moviemaking industry spends its money on in lieu of smarter, more meaningful, or hell, just funny ideas. Although, to be fair, if its existence leads to IGN creating a rating scale that allows us to give a movie a perfect, negative five-star review, then it just might be worth it.
Source : http://movies.ign.com
by Todd Gilchrist
August 29, 2008 - IGN can't give less than zero stars for a movie, but Disaster Movie deserves it. The latest "effort" from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the guys responsible for Date Movie, Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans, is yet another bottom-feeding cash-grab that exploits current events, ridicules pop culture icons and compromises the integrity of the zeitgeist itself in order to create, oh, one-quarter to one-half of a funny joke within the shortest possible time frame that qualifies as a theatrical release. And while Friedberg and Seltzer will be spared (for a few paragraphs at least) from shouldering the blame for this movie's crass, stupid and insulting existence, suffice it to say that I honestly believe that people who actively want to see garbage like Disaster Movie are directly responsible for the deterioration of American society as we know it.
Matt Lanter, who provides the poor impersonation of Hayden Christensen that serves as the voice of Anakin Skywalker in The Clone Wars, plays Will, a white guy who can't commit to his uber-hottie girlfriend Amy (Vanessa Minnillo) because he suffers from nightmares that the world will end. His worst fears are soon realized when his Super Sweet 16 birthday party is interrupted by meteors crashing down from the sky, but when he and Amy are stranded on opposite sides of town he charges into the city to rescue her. Soon, he and his friend Calvin (Gary "G-Thang" Johnson) cross paths with Calvin's comely girlfriend Lisa (Kim Kardashian), a pregnant, pop culture-charged teenager named Juney (Crista Flanagan), and an Enchanted Princess (Nicole Parker) as they race to save Amy from impending disaster.
I actually stopped documenting the movie's deluge of references after about 30 minutes, but here's a shortlist of some of the stuff that the Friedberg and Seltzer send up: 10,000 B.C., American Gladiators, Amy Winehouse, Facebook, Flava Flav, My Super Sweet 16, Dr. Phil, No Country For Old Men, Superbad/ McLovin, Angelina Jolie in Wanted, WWE Divas, Juno, High School Musical, Kanye West, the Jonas Brothers, the "Souljah Boy" dance, Justin Timberlake, Hannah Montana, Hancock, Sex and the City, Jumper, Step Up 2: The Streets, Twister (notice - the first actual disaster movie of the bunch), Hellboy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Cloverfield. Except for a five-minute belch from Amy Winehouse and an attack by metal-singing Alvin and co., I didn't laugh at any of this - and quite frankly, I'm fairly certain I was laughing at the film, not with it.
All of which actually brings up an important question: what exactly are we supposed to be laughing at? How badly done are the various impersonations and references? The desperation with which jokes are used to combine the backlot locations into a mock-up of an actual movie? Or even the simple recognition of some prominent person or event in recent history that the filmmakers deemed a noteworthy pop culture icon? Having a person dress up like Hannah Montana and then act like them is not funny, even if they are under a massive meteor, or projecting gaseous emissions for an extended period of time.
Perhaps the people I should pose these questions to are the filmmakers, as much as it pains me to credit them as "makers" of anything or mention them and any iteration of the word "film" in the same sentence. There is undeniable value in crafting smartly-executed (even if not actually smart) entertainment for a wide mainstream audience, but Disaster Movie is the kind of comedy where laughs go to die. I suppose I should credit them for at least not targeting the two most ubiquitous media whores in mainstream pop culture - Britney Spears and Paris Hilton - but how is it possible that self-proclaimed purveyors of genre parodies like Friedberg and Selzter are so uninformed about actual disaster movies that they couldn't put together a movie that actually makes fun of them?
Hm, let's see - The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, Airport (ok, already done), Twister, Independence Day, Deep Impact, Armageddon, Dante's Peak, Volcano, The Day After Tomorrow, and the Poseidon remake are the first dozen I can think of that they could have used, and without counting Cloverfield, which I think this film uses for its core story (but that could be a fortunate coincidence). It's quite frankly stultifying that Friedberg are Seltzer are ever let anywhere near a studio boardroom after having defecated out their previous movies, much less this one, but I suppose it's a small comfort that even Fox, who distributed the last three of their opuses, passed on this so that Lionsgate could get in on the mediocrity. (Although, seriously, this you put your marketing muscle behind, but you dump Midnight Meat Train and Repo?)
There's a part of me that wonders if Friedberg and Seltzer - much less the studio executives who reap the real profits - ever read reviews, or actually think that what they are doing is funny or remotely artistic. The very fact that these movies succeed is a reflection of the fact that audiences definitely do not read them or care about the longevity of the entertainment they support, even if their patronage is instrumental in lowering the bar for everyone and reducing the intellectual level of "mainstream" entertainment with each successive blockbuster. In which case, one more negative review probably isn't going to make much of a difference to the people who want to see it, or to the folks responsible for cranking these 90-minute punches in the face.
But make no mistake: Disaster Movie is godawful. Not because it's not deep or profound or lasting, or because it caters to the lowest common denominator. No, it's because this is what passes for entertainment, and what the moviemaking industry spends its money on in lieu of smarter, more meaningful, or hell, just funny ideas. Although, to be fair, if its existence leads to IGN creating a rating scale that allows us to give a movie a perfect, negative five-star review, then it just might be worth it.
Source : http://movies.ign.com
I actually stopped documenting the movie's deluge of references after about 30 minutes, but here's a shortlist of some of the stuff that the Friedberg and Seltzer send up: 10,000 B.C., American Gladiators, Amy Winehouse, Facebook, Flava Flav, My Super Sweet 16, Dr. Phil, No Country For Old Men, Superbad/ McLovin, Angelina Jolie in Wanted, WWE Divas, Juno, High School Musical, Kanye West, the Jonas Brothers, the "Souljah Boy" dance, Justin Timberlake, Hannah Montana, Hancock, Sex and the City, Jumper, Step Up 2: The Streets, Twister (notice - the first actual disaster movie of the bunch), Hellboy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Cloverfield. Except for a five-minute belch from Amy Winehouse and an attack by metal-singing Alvin and co., I didn't laugh at any of this - and quite frankly, I'm fairly certain I was laughing at the film, not with it.
All of which actually brings up an important question: what exactly are we supposed to be laughing at? How badly done are the various impersonations and references? The desperation with which jokes are used to combine the backlot locations into a mock-up of an actual movie? Or even the simple recognition of some prominent person or event in recent history that the filmmakers deemed a noteworthy pop culture icon? Having a person dress up like Hannah Montana and then act like them is not funny, even if they are under a massive meteor, or projecting gaseous emissions for an extended period of time.
Perhaps the people I should pose these questions to are the filmmakers, as much as it pains me to credit them as "makers" of anything or mention them and any iteration of the word "film" in the same sentence. There is undeniable value in crafting smartly-executed (even if not actually smart) entertainment for a wide mainstream audience, but Disaster Movie is the kind of comedy where laughs go to die. I suppose I should credit them for at least not targeting the two most ubiquitous media whores in mainstream pop culture - Britney Spears and Paris Hilton - but how is it possible that self-proclaimed purveyors of genre parodies like Friedberg and Selzter are so uninformed about actual disaster movies that they couldn't put together a movie that actually makes fun of them?
Hm, let's see - The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, Airport (ok, already done), Twister, Independence Day, Deep Impact, Armageddon, Dante's Peak, Volcano, The Day After Tomorrow, and the Poseidon remake are the first dozen I can think of that they could have used, and without counting Cloverfield, which I think this film uses for its core story (but that could be a fortunate coincidence). It's quite frankly stultifying that Friedberg are Seltzer are ever let anywhere near a studio boardroom after having defecated out their previous movies, much less this one, but I suppose it's a small comfort that even Fox, who distributed the last three of their opuses, passed on this so that Lionsgate could get in on the mediocrity. (Although, seriously, this you put your marketing muscle behind, but you dump Midnight Meat Train and Repo?)
There's a part of me that wonders if Friedberg and Seltzer - much less the studio executives who reap the real profits - ever read reviews, or actually think that what they are doing is funny or remotely artistic. The very fact that these movies succeed is a reflection of the fact that audiences definitely do not read them or care about the longevity of the entertainment they support, even if their patronage is instrumental in lowering the bar for everyone and reducing the intellectual level of "mainstream" entertainment with each successive blockbuster. In which case, one more negative review probably isn't going to make much of a difference to the people who want to see it, or to the folks responsible for cranking these 90-minute punches in the face.
But make no mistake: Disaster Movie is godawful. Not because it's not deep or profound or lasting, or because it caters to the lowest common denominator. No, it's because this is what passes for entertainment, and what the moviemaking industry spends its money on in lieu of smarter, more meaningful, or hell, just funny ideas. Although, to be fair, if its existence leads to IGN creating a rating scale that allows us to give a movie a perfect, negative five-star review, then it just might be worth it.
Source : http://movies.ign.com
