Monday, May 07, 2007
Epic Movie
** Epic Movie. Comedy.
Directed by: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.
Starring: Darrell Hammond, Crispin Glover, David Carradine, Kevin McDonald, Carmen Electra, Kal Penn
We saw this at Sembach with the kids.
I'm not sure where the IMDB or Amazon gets their times from, but the movie started at 7, and we were in the car, leaving the theater by 8:15. And that includes the national anthem and AAFES commercials before the movie, watching a good portion of the credits afterward, and walking to the car. Amazon says it's 93 minutes long; IMDB says 86. My watch says more like 70. If that.
Epic Movie is a spoof movie. Like Scary Movie (which I've seen) or Date Movie (which I haven't). It contains send-ups, with look-alike actors, of movies as diverse as Snakes on a Plane and Chronicles of Narnia, as well as Nacho Libre, Pirates of the Caribbean, The DaVinci Code, X-Men, etc., etc.
It was fun identifying the movies being spoofed, and, as with all satire, laughing at things that were originally serious, but taken out of context, or shown in a different light, or exaggerated, are funny as heck.
I like satire. In my opinion, though, the only reason for satire (or a spoof, or even a remake) is to add something to the original. Sarcasm, satire, spoofs... done well, they highlight the ridiculous in something serious. And in doing so, you see the original material differently, and maybe even appreciate it more.
However, several of the movies being spoofed were funny or even silly to begin with. There's not a lot of point in making a joke out of something that's already a joke. The originals were much funnier, and simply repeating the joke or dumbing it down didn't shed any light on them.
Also, the original material was so diverse that there wasn't a coherent story, or even a coherent concept.
Plus, it was short. Really short. I didn't even finish my popcorn.
...more
Categories: Movies, 2stars, Comedy
Labels: 2 stars, comedy, Movies
