Mock Zucker blues
A review of the unfortunate parody Epic Movie
By Robert Newton

EPIC MOVIE
Starring Kal Penn, Crispin Glover and Darrell Hammond; Written and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer; 86 minutes; Rated PG-13 [for crude and sexual humor, language and some comic violence]

What a world. They lock up Jack Kevorkian after helping a few terminal patients humanely shuffle off this mortal coil, and guys like Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are free to torture movie audiences time and again with painful parodic pap like the original Scary Movie, Date Movie, and now, this travesty of a so-called comedy. Futilely attempting to spoof popular movies like Superman Returns, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Pirates of the Caribbean, the dorky duo seem to have absolutely no idea as to what parody is all about, and their total cluelessness is actually quite amazing.

Good comedy is like good drama, in that it defies our expectation as to where it will go next. Here, though, every gag is so completely predictable that any Ritalin-high, 5-year-old non-reader could easily peg where every tired gag is going. We know that Superman will take a bullet to the eye…and fall off the building, screaming in pain. We know that the tasty river in the Chocolate Factory…will be made of poo. We know that the pirate will look at the pretty girls and make a joke about “booty.” Oh Lord, does the fun ever start?

There is much more to a good parody than just getting the costumes right. These guys could take a lesson from Airplane! creators the Zuckers, who cleaned up these gents’ Scary Movie franchise after the Wayans Brothers had completely sullied it with every homophobic and handi-hostile joke possible in the first two installments. Even the Zuckers’ watered-down The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult has more funny in its opening sequence than this one does in its 86 interminable minutes. Strike that — there is really nothing funny going on here, unless you count how the studio is laughing at all of us for coughing up good money to watch a collection of potty jokes and lame, pot-fuzzy observational material that Jay, Dave and Conan have already ground into dust.

The cast is a complete waste of talent. Fortunately for “SNL” stalwart Darrell Hammond, he is so heavily made-up as “Captain Jack Swallows” [laugh here at the naughty, funny name] that he is almost impossible to recognize. His riff on Johnny Depp’s swaggering pirate is pretty pointless, and even when he is cutting loose in a “Lazy Sunday” flavored pirate rap, it is too evident that the way-lazy writing is shackling him to its utter mediocrity. Kal Penn, who appeared in one of the worst movies of 2006, Van Wilder 2: The Rise Of Taj, stumbles around like an embarrassed zombie, at one point making a shameless to-the-camera reference to his somewhat inspired stoner comedy Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. Friedberg and Seltzer even cast Jayma Mays (Red Eye), a ringer for Scary Movie series star Anna Faris, in an attempt to distract everyone long enough to parlay their #1 opening weekend into studio script approval for Epic Movie 2: The Suck Also Rises (or whatever they will call it). It is the cleverest trick at work here, which, for a movie that is so not in-the-moment that it thinks Paris Hilton-bashing is bold comedy, is not saying much. Save your money, donate it to charity or just light it on fire in the parking lot. Then, call up Dr. Jack and tell him to fire up the Mercitron, as sad, tired schtick-fests like this one need a quick, humane death. •••