Disaster Movie

At the beginning of Disaster Movie, our hero Will (Matt Lanter) is having a dream where he's a caveman living in 10,000 B.C. After falling face-first in mammoth dung (six seconds in the movie, and we already have our first excrement joke), he is challenged by an American Gladiator, only to have an encounter with a sabre toothed Amy Winehouse (Nicole Parker), who informs him that the world is going to end, and he must find the Crystal Skull in order to prevent disaster. Will awakens from his dream, only to find his girlfriend Amy (Vanessa Minillo) is leaving him because he refuses to commit to their relationship.

Meanwhile, it's Will's birthday, and he's having his sweet 16 party MTV style, even though he's 25 years old. All of his friends are there, including Dr. Phil, Javier Bardem from No Country For Old Men, and Jessica Simpson. Amy is there too with her new boyfriend - a Calvin Klein underwear model. Will's friends, Calvin (Gary "G Thang" Johnson), Lisa (Kim Kardashian...Yes, THAT Kim Kardashian), and pregnant sarcastic teen Juney (Crista Flanagan) try to cheer him up by staging a High School Musical. Their singing is interrupted by a sudden meteor attack. They race outside of the building to find the city in chaos, and the local superheroes (Iron Man, Hulk, Hancock, Batman, and Hellboy) are powerless, since most of them get crushed by cows being flung from a damaging Twister. Our heroes soon befriend an Enchanted Princess (Nicole Parker again), who rises up out of a manhole, and try to find a safe place to hide. Unfortunately, everywhere they go, they are confronted by someone, whether it be the Sex and the City girls, or Alvin and the Chipmunks, who have developed a taste for heavy metal and human flesh.

Will eventually remembers his dream from earlier that day, and realizes he has to find the Crystal Skull in order to stop all of this. But first, his friends and him must make their way to a magical museum of natural history where the exhibits come to life at night, and where Amy is currently hiding. They arrive at the museum, only to be confronted by a naked Beowulf and a Kung Fu Panda, and then they meet Indiana Jones, who is played by Tony Cox from Bad Santa, and...You know what, I'm not even going to go on. If you read the above synopsis and did not laugh, there's a very good reason. Disaster Movie simply checks off its references, instead of doing anything funny with them. Of course, those of you who are familiar with the work of filmmakers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer will not find this surprising. It's a formula that they've been employing with a disturbing amount of success since bursting onto the scene with 2006's Date Movie, along with their follow-ups, Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans. They shoot these movies as quickly as possible, then they dump it on a slow weekend, hoping to lure in some bored teens with the promise of fun, only to supply more boredom.

Disaster Movie is probably their chintziest production yet, since the film only started production back in May, and it's already playing in theaters. Yes, you heard me right. This movie, which is supposed to parody all of this year's summer blockbusters, was made before half of the movies referenced within it even hit theaters. Friedberg and Seltzer were somehow able to con a studio head into buying a screenplay that was written after a massive session of watching trailers for upcoming movies, then throwing references to those trailers into the script. I guess that explains why the movie is so vague with its own references, but it doesn't explain why anyone thought this movie was a good idea, or why it needed to be rushed into production. I cannot think of any movie that has stooped to this low of a level for its humor. The movie doesn't even bother to truly parody Cloverfield, which is the obvious inspiration for its main plot. Considering how ripe for parody that movie was (especially the shaky handheld camera style of that film), you'd think it'd be an easy target. But then you remember who is behind this movie, and you just go with it.

I'm starting to find the movies that Friedberg and Seltzer put out harder and harder to critique. Not because they're getting better, but because they stay the same. They make the same mistakes, they keep on missing the same point, and they keep on churning out the same stuff over and over again, this time a lot faster than normal. (Disaster Movie is their second release in 2008.) I feel like I'm repeating myself each time I review their movies. These guys obviously plan to milk this thing as long as they can. More power to them, I guess. But then, I think of all the much better screenplays that were probably passed over because of this. Or the lives that could have been saved with the money put into this project. For a movie that's supposed to make you laugh, Disaster Movie sure leaves some depressing thoughts in your head...

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