Review of Date Movie (2006) by The2Nd D — 05 Jun 2009

Parody movies have been around for a very long time. Many of the original trendsetters were hilarious movies that knew just how to parody certain movies to their advantage and make the audience have a good time.

But as time went on, like all genres, it became stale and became unfunny. Now with Date Movie, we have begun to move into the beyond unfunny territory. There is no real key movie being parodied here, but a number of them.

From recent movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers and Hitch, to classic movies like When Harry Met Sally... and Say Anything. It does not even stop at romantic "date movies" as their parody material.

Kill Bill Volume 1, Napoleon Dynamite, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and more have a couple of dedicated minutes thrown in for good measure. And while much of these parodies are totally incorrectly done, there are some that are genuinely hilarious.

Classic parody movies were never as bad, overdone or terribly unfunny as this. Even worse is the fact that the writers/director were involved in the original Scary Movie, which was a great parody movie that was downright hilarious.

In this movie, they focused in on their parodies and crafted them to be funny. Here, they barely do any focusing, and it all feels rushed and just thrown together in an attempt at hoping for the best results to come out of it.

This movie was not the lack of hilarity or the fact that some of the most unfunny jokes in the movie were totally overdone, was the fact that much of the movie just feels more like a rip-off remake, than a parody.

In more than a few instances, it looks like they just ripped the scene right out of the movie they are supposed to be parodying, and got the cast to just re-do the scene. This is not parody. This is a rip-off.

This movie could have been great, had the filmmakers wanted to make a parody and not a rip-off. It's sad and it's makes for an unfunny movie, marked by random points of hilarity. While the cast tries it's best at being funny, the script just will not allow them to be.