It started with the Scary Movie franchise and continued with Date Movie. Now, two of the six writers responsible for the latter movies are back, this time to parody recent blockbuster/epic films in their latest effort, Epic Movie.
What this new film shares in common with the other similar comedies that have preceded it is that they are uniformly juvenile and light on humour.
Epic Movie opens with a narrator: “This is the story of four orphans brought together by fate. They didn’t know it yet, but there was something greater in store for them, something epic.”
The film opens inside the famous Louvre museum in France – an obvious tribute to Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code.
There is a joke made about Tom Hanks’ hair and it kind of works as long as you’re willing to let yourself be immature for the duration of the entire film.
The four main characters each come across a golden ticket – similar to the one that Charlie discovers in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). But Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is not an epic film and besides Crispin Glover’s cameo appearance as the twisted Wonka, this parody feels completely out of place.
The four orphans find themselves inside Wonka’s chocolate factory. One thing to note is the remarkable set. Viewers are instantly transported to Tim Burton’s version of Wonka’s factory once again – a more inexpensive set that is.
Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, 2004), who is cast as one of the orphans, bursts into joy when he sees the chocolate river. As he drinks from the river, Wonka informs him that he is actually drinking from the factory’s sewer line.
One scene that is principally amusing involves snakes on an airplane.
James Walker Sr., an actor whose filmography record on IMDB only lists Epic Movie, portrays Samuel L. Jackson’s character from the action film Snakes on a Plane (2006).
Not only does Walker Sr. look and sound like Jackson but his imitation is as accurate as impersonations get.
The same could be said about Carmen Electra who stars as Mystique from the X-Men trilogy and Saturday Night Live’s own Darrell Hammond who is uproarious as Jack Swallows, a copy of Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow character from The Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Alas, these great performers have small parts and while it’s hilarious to watch them as they bring these wonderful impressions to the screen, the laughs in Epic Movie are too few.
The film seems hurried and because it rushes through the parodies we, viewers, can only chuckle at material.
Comedy demands good timing and the jokes here fly by without waiting for the viewer’s response. If you don’t pay close attention, you’ll never notice the actor who is playing the museum curator at the very beginning.
There is, however, a positive side to the flip coin. The writers, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, have made a step in the right direction with Epic Movie.
Date Movie(2006) was a disaster of a comedy. In fact, I could not imagine a worse comedy.
Epic Movie doesn’t exasperate the viewer nor does it tempt the viewer to question his/her own sense of humour. Epic Movie was made with more consideration.
If we can’t laugh at the comedy, we can at least feast our eyes on the wonderful set design and our ears on the soundtrack (Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous Girl” and Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting” are two of the songs that are effectively used).
This comedy is not nearly as detestable as Date Movie.
The writers have learned a great deal from their mistakes and have subsequently made a better movie.
If they continue to hone their writing skills and develop their formula on this note, they may be able to craft a solid comedy in the near future.
These writers are capable, never out of ideas, and not afraid to try new things.
It is an experimental comedy, bold, silly, harmless, but one key ingredient is still missing: wit.
