Written and Directed by:<\/b> Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
\nStarring: <\/b>Alyson Hannigan, Adam Campbell, Sophie Monk, Eddie Griffin, Tony Cox, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge
\nRated: <\/b>PG-13 for continuous crude and sexual humor, including language.
\nParental Notes: <\/b>This is a very crude film, and while it’s rated PG-13 some parents may not be comforatble with their children seeing it.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDate Movie,\u201d brought to us by two of the six guys who wrote \u201cScary Movie,\u201d is a send-up of every date movie clich\u00e9 its creators could think of and work into the film, with a few non-date-movie references thrown in for good measure. It has liberal amounts of gross-out humor, characters who are less characters than they are coatracks to hang jokes upon, and is as over-the-top and cheesy as one mght expect. Really, if you’ve seen either of the \u201cScary Movie\u201d installments, you can pretty much guess what you’re in for.
\nWhat little plot there is revolves around Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan, \u201cAmerican Pie\u201d), who works as a waitress at her family’s restaurant and longs for a Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet. She finds him in Grant Fonkyerdoter (Adam Campbell), a very handsome, very British guy who falls for her instantly even though she’s incredibly overweight. Of course, there are plenty of things in the way of their Happily Ever After. The most challening are Grant’s supermodel ex Andy (Sophie Monk, \u201cThe Mystery of Natalie Wood\u201d), who wants him back, and Julia’s father Frank (Eddie Griffin, \u201cDeuce Bigalow\u201d) who wants her to marry someone from her own Black-Indian-Japanese-Jewish cultural background. With the help of Hitch (Tony Cox, \u201cBad Santa\u201d) she sets out to get him anyway.
\nThe movie’s humor comes from a long series of throwaway jokes which are chiefly funny because we can see them coming. This isn’t the laughter of amazement or surprise but of recognition. There are references to date movies from \u201cSay Anything\u201d to \u201cThe Wedding Planner\u201d as well as to \u201cKill Bill,\u201d \u201cLord of the Rings,\u201d and various music videos. Some of the jokes are drawn out a little too long, such as Grant’s family’s cat, who is clever enough to use a toilet but has a case of irritable bowel syndrome to rival Ben Stiller’s in \u201cAlong Came Polly.\u201d This is lowbrow humor at its lowest, and if you don’t find a cat humping a corpse to be funny, you probably won’t enjoy most of the shtick in the film.
\nFortunately, the main actors have the one vitally important characteristic in a film like this: a willingness to throw themselves completely into roles which require utterly humiliating themselves. Hannigan wears a huge fat suit for the first third of the film and cavorts around while the camera captures every cellulite-mimicing jiggle. Campbell has to do everything from faking an orgasm more violently than Meg Ryan in \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u201d to being pelted with food while holding a boom box over his head. Even so, both of them are completely into their roles and sincere. There isn’t a trace of fear or embarassment in either performance, and that in itself is impressive. Hannigan has the advantage of having three \u201cAmerican Pie\u201d films under her belt, but Campbell is a comparative newcomer, his only previous credit being the short-lived TV series \u201cCommando Nanny.\u201d
\n\u201cDate Movie\u201d is not very original by its very nature, and it’s full of toilet humor and uneven pacing. It’s less a film than a collection of comedy sketches strung together and containing the same central characters. If you are only looking for something to kill an hour and a half (it clocks in at only 85 minutes) and enjoyed the genre, you will probably enjoy it. Those looking for any actual romance, plot, or intelligent humor will be better served elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Written and Directed by: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer Starring: Alyson Hannigan, Adam Campbell, Sophie Monk, Eddie Griffin, Tony Cox, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge Rated: PG-13 for continuous crude and sexual humor, including language. Parental Notes: This is a very crude film, and while it’s rated PG-13 some parents may not be comforatble with their children seeing it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-rated-pg-13"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2oSX4-3F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1732,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/1732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}