A Brief History of Spoofworld..
The era of the movie spoof is fast declining. Back in the 40’s and 50’s, movie spoofs were at the zenith of their popularity. With the concept of a spoof being to parody Hollywood character stereotypes, this genre of movies was easily conceivable and low-budget while at the same time popular because of ruthless and humorous takes on the exaggerated dramatics that characterized movies of that age. But as Hollywood’s movies evolved into less flamboyant and more realistic themes, the spoofs just weren’t funny anymore and eventually disappeared. In the early 80’s the Zucker brothers along with Jim Abrahams resurrected the genre with the movie ’’Airplane!’’ and followed up with such spoof classics as ’’Naked Gun’’ and ’’Top Secret!’’. With Naked Gun they pioneered the idea of having the ’’unfunniest’’ possible characters in the business throw out the punchlines. With ’’Naked Gun’’ this was a winning formula. In all the 3 parts, Leslie Nielsen is credited with some tongue-in-cheek straight faced humor - not quite the Charlie Sheen calibre - but enough to throw the audience out for a loop. Unfortunately though, the Zuckers’ latest attempt at parody after taking over the Scary Movie franchise from the Wayans brothers simply doesn’t pack the punch that one would expect.
Should you be scared?
No. And if I were you, I wouldnt be expecting too many laughs either. What the Wayans brothers did to Scary Movie was set the bar low enough for the Zucker brothers to take it to the next level. Even though the Zuckers brought in a slightly more discerning twist to the pathetically senseless humor that characterized the previous 2 parts, the offering was just not up to snuff. When Scary Movie came out, the concept of parodying horror movies was fresh and the Wayans brothers capitalized on the freshness by injecting brutally slapstick renditions of movies such as ’’I know what you did Last Summer’’ and ’’Scream’’. However when Scary Movie 2 came out, it became clear that the humor was insipid and lacked even the minimal substance needed to qualify it as a spoof. When Scary Movie 3 started being advertised on TV, I was excited on three accounts:
The Zucker brothers had taken over from the Wayans and they are credited for literally re-inventing the movie parody genre.
It was supposedly a parody of The Ring, a movie that had me on the edge of my seat. (Read my review on The Ring).
It had movie parody veterans like Leslie Nielsen and Charlie Sheen in it.
Cutting to the chase...
The movie opens up with the opening scene from The Ring. Except instead of 2 ditsy teenagers you have a HEAVILY ’’over-endowed’’ Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy doing the honors. However I didnt really find anything particular about the scene itself that was ridiculed as much as the less-than-subtle focus on Pam’s silicon ’’wonders-of-the-world’ - needless to say that didnt go over very well with me - and I soon realized that this disappointment was just a precedent to what was about to follow. Well after that start, you see a familiar face on the screen - that of Anna Faris - the girl who played ’’sexually indifferent’’ Cindy (I wonder if that best describes her). This time though Cindy goes from being dark haired ditsy school girl to blonde haired ditsy reporter who at the present time is covering a story on a mysterious videotape that kills people (sound familiar?) and a story on mysterious happenings in a corn field owned by an afflicted farmer ( played by Charlie Sheen ) who has a little daughter and a brother named George (?) who thinks he belongs to the hood. Cindy has a foster kid who has premonitions about everything and everyone (another stab at the Ring) but cant stop from getting run over by vehicles or unwittingly beaten up by George who Cindy has a crush on. Then there’s Brenda (another old school SM character) who plays the kid’s foul mouthed schoolteacher for about a little under half the movie until she gets wasted by the ’’dead girl’’ from the Ring -- I have never found her character funny in any of the parts I’ve seen so far - if talking like a soul sista and making stereotype ’’sista’’ gestures is funny then I’d say there’s no accounting for imagination. Besides these characters, there are a slew of others (Michael Jackson, the American President and a few dorky looking aliens to name a few) that have their individual 5-10 minutes of fame. I really don’t know if there’s a story as such to tell because Scary Movie 3 in essence is just a sequence of disconnected scenes from a bunch of movies with the central storyline ripping scenes off the Ring. If you’ve seen:
’’The Others’’
’’8 Mile’’
’’Signs’’
’’The Matrix’’
you’ll find yourself getting amused at some of the humor that gets tossed at you. There are hits below the belt on some real life issues such as Michael Jackson’s penchant for hanging babies off balconies and promiscuous Boston clergymen with an attraction for little boys that I thought was pretty hilarious. And a ’’rap war’’ that I thought was passably funny. But I was surprised that I was not laughing through most of the movie! There were parts of the movie that really made me wonder what the director was trying to parody. The slapstick parts of the movie where children get beaten up and pummeled by moving vehicles, where aliens pee by pointing their fingers seemed a little too pedestrian for my liking and actually got annoyingly repetitive as opposed to being funny. Somehow the idea of an 8 year old kid getting beat up by an oversized moron or getting run over by a car driven by his own foster mom (mind you) does not seem like something that would amuse me regardless of how funnily the director portrayed it. And then comes the President of the United States played by an ancient looking Leslie Nielsen (who by the way needs to retire). Leslie Nielsen tries to bring in some of the old charm but by the time he comes in, the humor has worn thin. Although he does have some good punchlines, there’s a point where you feel like everything is banally like deja-vu. And it doesn’t smell very good either.
As I walked out of the theater...
...I didnt know how to feel. There are really two possibilities. One is that the Zuckers have lost their touch and should consider an alternate genre of filmmaking, an alternate career, or early retirement. But it seems like none of that is about to happen any time soon. Scarily enough, Scary Movie 3 is not the end of the SM franchise. Next year we are going to be subjected to part 4 of Scary Movie which interestingly does not parody ANY scary movies and instead spoofs movies like Spider-Man and The Hulk. I am not sure how the Zuckers intend on marketing this one but then again, stranger things have happened. The other and more plausible theory I have is that spoofs no longer have the juice that they once did which would imply sticking a fork in the whole genre. I tend to lean towards that school of thought - simply because movies coming out today are simply not ’’spoof worthy’’. Movies like The Hulk are parodies in themselves -- a parody on a movie like ’’The Hulk’’ would probably amount to overkill. Maybe it’s time for a little originality and a little imagination. Maybe it’s time filmmakers went back to the drawing board and thought about what really makes a movie tick instead of adopting the ’’production line’’ approach that 21st century Hollywood has adopted.