"Disaster Movie" Review - Written by TonyD

“Disaster Movie”
2008
BOMB out of ****
Director: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
Cast: Matt Lanter, Vanessa Minnillo, G. Thang


The rule of a critic is to never go into a comedy expecting not to laugh. If you do, then why spend your money and/or time watching it? I go into every single comedy expecting to laugh – I did with “The Hottie and the Nottie,” “Witless Protection,” “The Love Guru,” and “Postal” earlier this yeah, and I STILL plan on going into this weekend’s “My Best Friend’s Girl” expecting to laugh, even though I hate Dane Cook and Kate Hudson. I tried to go into the newest spoof film made by two of the six writers of “Scary Movie” (appropriately) titled “Disaster Movie” expecting to laugh… but no such luck.

And instead of spending my time saying “fuck this movie,” which I could easily do (and oh tits I can), I would rather take my time to talk a little bit about why this movie was made. Between watching this and the other films in the Friedberg-Seltzer series of spoof films, I began thinking, “You know what? These movies ARE our fault.”

Remember a few decades ago? I don’t, because I wasn’t alive back in the 70s and 80s, but let’s take a journey back. Does anyone remember when Mel Brooks, the Zucker guys, and Joe Dante ruled the spoof genre? With films like “Blazing Saddles,” “Airplane,” “Kentucky Fried Movie,” “The Naked Gun,” “Spaceballs,” “Young Frankenstein,” “Top Secret,” and “Gremlins,” there was always something sure to entertain you and keep you laughing. All of these comedies are remembered today as being some of the funniest movies ever made. And parody movies went even FARTHER back. I dare you to sit through the Marx Brothers’ “Duck Soup” and try not to laugh.

In my opinion, the last good parody made was the original “Scary Movie.” Sure, it was filled with dick and fart jokes, but it followed a simple plot while still craftily parodying movies. After being bombarded with tons of sequels that followed the film (poorly, if I may add, and a couple of them were made by the Zuckers), two of the six writers from the original “Scary Movie” came together and made a spoof called “Date Movie,” which parodied romantic comedies while trying to be a romantic comedy itself. Now let’s all be frank – I can shit on “Date Movie” all I want, but I’ll be the first one to admit that it isn’t THAT bad. At least not as bad as the next films that followed, “Epic Movie, “Meet the Spartans,” and today, “Disaster Movie.” And after watching all of these movies, I figured out who wrote all of the dick and fart jokes for “Scary Movie.”

These movies have also been profitable too, which is something that I really don’t understand. “Date Movie” made over forty-five million, “Epic Movie” has made almost forty million, “Meet the Spartans” made over thirty-eight million, and “Disaster Movie” currently has only twelve million, which means that a movie CAN fail. But there is no one to blame for the making of these movies other than us.

We can easily shit on these movies because they’re unfunny and they rip on pop-culture, but let’s look at the real facts. Hollywood makes these big-budgeted movies that you waste all of your money into. You paid to see “The Dark Knight” ten times, and the “Star Wars” geek brought his lightsaber to go see “Clone Wars.” When you put all of your money into these movies, Hollywood believes that you will want to see these kinds of characters again. All of those famous YouTube videos too? Your fault for talking about them.

So it should be no surprise that they would even consider about paying into a movie like “Disaster Movie” when there are characters like Iron Man, Hellboy, The Hulk, Hancock, the kids from “High School Musical,” and Michael Jackson. It doesn’t matter if a cow falls on top of your favorite superhero – if they are in it, you will pay into it.

Since you keep putting your money into films like “Date Movie” and “Epic Movie,” we keep getting “Meet the Spartans” and “Disaster Movie.” These movies are made with no effort being put into them, but like most movies, they’re only made for the money that comes with them. These filmmakers don’t even care about the bad reviews they are given by critics, reviewers, and moviegoers. “Meet the Spartans” and “Disaster Movie” are two of the worst films of 2008, and they’re both on my Worst 10 films of the year so far.

But here is the litmus test – how many times are they going to make a movie like this? If we keep watching them, will they keep making them? Or how about if we stop watching them, will the films never be made again. One could only hope that we don’t ever have to see the likes of a film like “Disaster Movie” again, especially me. They will probably have another film coming out later next year, but I’ve already given up. I don’t want to see anyone play Juno or breakdance like those bastards in “Step Up 2” ever again.