Epic flop

So, this weekend, I went with a few friends to see “Epic Movie,” starring nobody you’ve ever heard of doing things that flat-out aren’t funny. It’s supposed to be a parody of all of the recent movies, but what this movie considers “epic” sure is, well, everything but. Generally, when I think of an “epic” movie, I think of “Lord of the Rings,” “Gladiator,” or the upcoming “300”. Apparently, according to the creators of this movie, everything on the silver screen is epic. Oh, dear.

This movie parodies (and this list is by no means inclusive): “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “The Da Vinci Code,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Nacho Libre,” “X-Men,” “Snakes on a Plane,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Harry Potter,” “Star Wars,” “Superman,” “Casino Royale,” “Click,” “Borat,” “Punk*D,” “Cribs,” and many others. The problem with parodying so many movies? You never get the chance to develop your plot on any of them. And the result? A movie that is downright awful. Putrid. Hollywood filth at its finest.

I walked into the movie expecting a funny parody of a bunch of modern movies. Boy, was I wrong. What I got was celluloid vomit, in the strongest possible sense. First problem: no star power. No cameos, nothing. A good parody movie needs at least one recognizable cameo. (The beginning of “Goldmember” is a classic example of perfect execution of the cameo-as-a-surprise technique.) Nope. Nada. Cue the “White B*tch of Gnarnia” (sorry ladies and gentlemen, I just gave away the funniest part of the movie…the new name of the White Witch), was I supposed to know who that is? I guess she looks familiar and all the teenagers around me are laughing, so maybe I should know who that is? Or maybe we’re all laughing because we know that we’re supposed to be. Or maybe, we’re actually crying because we can’t believe this movie sucked $8.50 out of our wallets and we’re still sitting in the audience watching this trash.

Every single gag had been done already, over and over and over again. Seriously. During the opening of the movie, they make fun of Tom Hanks’s mullet that he had in “The Da Vinci Code.” People were doing that before he even appeared on screen in the actual movie! Oh, and don’t forget the scene where the bountifully blessed bikini babe goes running across the screen and then magically transforms into a moob-blessed man. The end of “Dodgeball” anyone? There’s a scene on Captain Jack Swallows’s (yep, that’s the best they could do… great name for a porn flick…pathetic for a feature-film) ship where they rap a song and just about every word is bleeped out. Been done. Period. You could literally see the writers reaching for gags.

Oh, and this movie is heavy heavy heavy on the MTV/hip-hop/rap. So much, in fact, that the movie digresses into a bass-heavy rhythmically uninteresting musical section every chance it can get (read: once a scene, at least). I don’t mind that style of music in movies, it’s usually very effective, but it was seriously like “didn’t we just finish one of these montages? Enough already!” Actually, repetition seems to be this movie’s primary comedic gag. Whereas Dane Cook (or “Family Guy” for that matter) is a master at repetition-for-effect, this movie was awful. You could see the no-name director just begging for more content to get his movie to the too-long length of 90 minutes.

Some parts of the movie just become plain crude. During the Willy Wonka montage, apparently the river of chocolate was actually a river of sewage, and the secret ingredients in Wonka’s chocolates were human body parts of various origins. Now, I don’t know about you, but seeing a pair of testicles lopped off is not funny. During this painfully-long scene, the audience was dead silent. Nobody laughed.

Do not go see this movie! It’s awful. Save that $8.50 and buy yourself something nice, like, oh, a Clint Eastwood movie on DVD from Wal-mart, or some chocolate for your sweetie, or a handy multi-tool, or any number of other things. But don’t, whatever you do, spend your money on this movie. Hey, don’t write to say I didn’t warn you.