With So Little To Parody, The Starving Games Swings Wide And Misses.

The Good: One or two jokes
The Bad: Poor use of source material (after the first five minutes), No superlative acting, No real character development, Most of the humor falls painfully flat.
The Basics: The Starving Games is a dismal parody of The Hunger Games and other blockbusters released in the last year.


There are few films that let the viewer know exactly what they are in for from the movie poster itself. And yet, with The Starving Games, the latest parody film by the once-audacious, now tragically tired duo of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer whose last film Vampires Suck (reviewed here!) certainly lived up to its name, gives it away with the movie poster: the film is a turkey. The movie poster to The Starving Games makes a parody of the Mockingjay symbol from The Hunger Games with a turkey skewered on the arrow and it is utterly unsurprising that the film did not break into the Top Ten in its debut weekend.

Largely overlooked at the box office last weekend, The Starving Games is a parody of current cinema and pop culture, focusing primarily on The Hunger Games (reviewed here!) for its main plot. But, unlike Weird Al Yankovic, who seemed to realize that when pop music was largely usurped by hip-hop and rap that there was less that his talents were able to parody (whatwith his obsession largely being to parody the pretense and absurdity of pop-rock music) and he slowed producing new material, Seltzer and Friedberg once again churn out a work that seems to cram as many elements together as possible without nailing the real humor of a sophisticated parody. For sure, the pair hits the nail on the head with the initial monologue from President Snowballs about how the Starving Games themselves make little sense as an element of cultural control, but beyond that, The Starving Games is an amalgamation of irrelevant and often lame jokes – like Siri jokes and blowing up LMFAO.

Set in a similar world to The Hunger Games, where youth are pitted against one another in an annual bloodsport, Kantmiss Evershot is thrilled not to be selected for the 75th Annual Starving Games. However, when her younger sister, Petunia, is called and gives her the puppydog eyes, Kantmiss volunteers and leaves Dale behind. Peter Malarky volunteers, though Kantmiss does not remember who he is and he claims during the pre-show to have a crush on Marko, the Tribute from District 1. After an interminable wait on the discs in the arena waiting to be set loose, the Starving Games begin with exaggerated killing (like a girl being stabbed in the back, neck, and having her legs and torso cut off with a chainsaw clinging to Kantmiss for the backpack she snatches) and ridiculously over-the-top groin injuries.

The focus remains on Kantmiss as she flees the carnage from the other players and encounters VR trees, app-based obstacles and the obvious romantic references. As Kantmiss moves toward her inevitable victory, The Starving Games degenerates into a familiar barrage of body humor and gay jokes that are anything but funny, clever, or insightful.

The Starving Games once again proves the old adage that there’s a sucker born every minute. I refer not to the audience – who, by this time, has to know what they are getting with a Friedberg/Seltzer production – but rather to the financers. A number of people and corporations shelled out millions of dollars to produce The Starving Games, apparently ignorant of how un-funny the last several works from this duo have been. The fact that Apple, which usually tries to be associated with what is fresh and hip, allows so many of its products to be used on screen, makes it seem like the company has either entirely lost its edge or it was bamboozled by the producers of The Starving Games. In a similar fashion, the Angry Birds reference is momentarily cute, but the follow-up with the fruit-slicing just seems like a cheap chance to make a Kardashian joke.

Like most parody movies, The Starving Games is not about developing characters well, it is focused on satirizing an existing film (in this case with more nods at general pop culture because The Hunger Games has more conceptual flaws with the set-up, as opposed to inherent humor in the execution of the film). As a result, Kantmiss is not a character the viewer empathizes with or becomes invested in. We do not care if she lives or dies and she is frequently an accessory, a stage piece to make non-sequitor jokes, like one with a princess piñata that comes out of nowhere.

Actor Cody Christian is made up to appear as a thinly-veiled reference to Justin Bieber, but the joke – like his performance – does not land to adequately sell the character of Peter as a parody of Peeta from The Hunger Games. Actress Lauren Bowles illustrates that she was willing to do virtually anything considering how little her character was used in the sixth season of True Blood (reviewed here!) as she appears as Effoff. To her credit; the role of Effoff might have as much or more screentime as Elizabeth Banks’ Effie did in The Hunger Games. The absurd role is more humor than she has been allowed to show on True Blood, so the appeal to the actress to do The Starving Games is evident.

Unfortunately, the lead, Maiara Walsh, who plays Kantmiss, fails to land. There is no obvious acting flaw for her to pick on, unlike satirizing Kristen Stewart’s performance in Twilight, so she flails around never quite making Kantmiss interesting. As she belabors parodies of Avatar and Sherlock Holmes (the film, not the books), the viewer ends up feeling sorry for the actress and what she is forced to say and do for the paycheck more than we ever care about Kantmiss.

Ultimately, The Starving Games is what one has come to expect of an Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg production; an idea with limited potential, executed in the most mundane fashion possible, with a shotgun approach to humor. The Starving Games may safely be ignored by one and all.

For other parody movies, please check out my reviews of:
Date Movie
Dance Flick
Not Another Teen Movie

1/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Movies Not Worth Reviewing, Vol. 4 - Disaster Movie

The Good: Clear knowledge of recent movies?
The Bad: Not funny, Not cohesive, Terrible acting, Lousy execution of concept
The Basics: Far worse than can even be described, Disaster Movie is a lousy collection of loosely related jokes spoofing current cinema. Poorly.


There is nothing funny about the blacklists, the Hollywood system of banning that resulted from the Red Scare. There is nothing funny about how people were kept from work because others named names and had writers, directors, producers and actors kept from working because of their alleged affiliations with the communists. So, by extension, there is nothing funny about the idea of starting a new blacklist and alleging that Disaster Movie's writers and directors, Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg are terrorist sympathizers just to keep them from ever working in Hollywood ever again. There would be nothing funny about ruining their lives in that way even under the misguided notion of "saving cinema."

Sadly, there is nothing funny about Disaster Movie, either. The latest outing from the mind that brought Epic Movie (reviewed here!) and Date Movie (reviewed here!) to the screen is perhaps his most erratic and least funny movie to date. This loosely assembled collection of spoofs on films - most of which came out this very summer - falls utterly flat and ends up as a poorly constructed assembly of jokes that mock (yet again) women, homosexuals, fat people, short people and anyone who is different.

Will, Amy, and Calvin are friends who are having a lousy night. The party of their lives is disrupted by natural disasters, like an asteroid headed for their very city, tornadoes and earthquakes. As they struggle to make it to safety, they encounter Indiana Jones, Batman, Juney, and a wide array of others who are only tangentially involved in either the disasters around them or the attempt to save the city.

The film then degenerates into a witless quest to save the world. The fundamental problem here is that in the process, the references are so wide and varied that they quickly diverge from the point and purpose of the movie. In other words, this is not so much Disaster Movie, making a mockery of films that focus on disasters, it is pretty much an attempt to indict every superhero, comedy, science fiction or even drama movie in recent memory. It has more to that makes one consider it Epic Movie 2 than a true Disaster Movie, save that it is entirely sloppy. This flick is a cinematic disaster, but we know that that was not the intent of the title.

Perhaps the saddest thing about Disaster Movie is how the movie poster perfectly characterizes the movie. The movie poster is an amalgam of over ten films, including the cinematic outing of Sex And The City, Dodgeball, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and Juno. The movie poster illustrates perfectly the lack of coherent, cohesive themes for Disaster Movie. Sure, there is an asteroid headed to destroy the Earth at one point, but it is only an excuse to make snarky pokes at every movie to have a modicum of success in the last year.

But largely - and this cannot be stressed enough - Disaster Movie is not funny. It is not clever, it is not even amusing. From the moment it begins through is resolution, I laughed a grand total of zero times. This is especially disturbing when one considers that I've seen virtually every movie referenced, love cinema and genre works and enjoy a good spoof. The problem here is that Disaster Movie is not a good spoof. Instead, it is a random collection of jokes that allude to current movies.

For those looking for anything remotely along the lines of character development, Disaster Movie is absolutely abysmal for that as well. The lead protagonists, Amy, Will and Calvin show up only to wander through a collection of allusions. This is like Cloverfield, save there is no underplayed love story being poorly developed under the surface for even the appearance of development. In other words, the characters are simply tools used to allow the writers and director to make their "jokes." There is no character growth because the film is not actually about the individuals running around the city as opposed to who they run into while there.

As for the acting, it is astonishing that Disaster Movie even snagged actor Ike Barinholtz from Mad TV. Barinholtz actually has comedic talent, none of which comes through in Disaster Movie. Outside Barinholtz, Disaster Movie is devoid of any innate talent, consisting instead of Seltzer and Friedberg regulars like Nicole Parker, Crista Flanagan, and Tony Cox. In Disaster Movie, none of them seem to be on their game. Instead, the humor falls flat from the set up through the delivery of virtually every joke or gag. Indeed, if there was ever a spoof movie where it seemed like every single comedian was off in their sense of timing and delivery, Disaster Movie might well be it.

Lacking a decent - or even reasonably structured - plot, Disaster Movie wanders around pointlessly and aimlessly from one vignette to another as the group of twentysomethings attempts to save a world the viewer is utterly uninvested in emotionally. The result is a pointless movie that one not ought to waste their money seeing, no matter how mildly amusing the previews might make it seem.

For other lousy comedies, please check out my reviews of:
Vampires Suck
Scary Movie 4
Did You Hear About The Morgans?


0/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Films Barely Worth Reviewing, Vol. 3 - Epic Movie

The Good: Ummm . . . . none
The Bad: Not funny, Terrible acting, Not witty, DVD Bonus features stink, Everything
The Basics: In another film best described as "criminally unfunny," the same lame jokes are recycled in a fantasy setting.


For those who do not know my reviews, I am an unabashed geek. I love science fiction and fantasy in film and novel form and I've even been known to pick up a comic book from time to time. So, when someone who loves science fiction-fantasy and has a sense of humor about being a geek is enthusiastically looking forward to a parody of it, as I was in the case of Epic Movie, one hopes that the review would carry a little more weight, the way someone who has seen every single cop show and movie can separate out the best from the average for a viewer. That said, Epic Movie is a colossal disappointment, unworth the time of the geek, the lover of parody or even the thirteen year-old crowd the film is probably marketed toward.

In short, this is another just plain dumb movie from the same people who brought us similarly dumb movies as Date Movie (reviewed here!) and Scary Movie 4 (reviewed here!). Indeed, it includes much of the same cast and . . . many of the same jokes.

Assembled from various families, four orphans come together in a chocolate factory where they discover a magical wardrobe. Passing through it, they are transported to a magical world that is enslaved by the forces of White Bitch, an evil queen. Susan, Edward, Peter, and Lucy must work together to overthrow her and bring peace to the world.

Sigh. This is another lame collection of jokes against homosexuals, overweight people and little people. Yes, it's an assembly of the usual dick and fart jokes that combine to be nothing more than a complete waste of time. Indeed, the flick is virtually interchangeable with the parodies of horror films and romantic comedies that have come before. The work ends up utilizing more generic humor than anything, so geeks won't even be rewarded for their inside knowledge. In short, it's not even parody or satire, it's just a string of stupid, generic jokes that poke fun of anyone who is different.

Most of Epic Movie gets its plot from The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (reviewed here!), though it makes fun of the Harry Potter series, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and X-Men. None of these allusions are done with any sense of style or any truly intimate knowledge or observation. Characters that look like characters in those works pop up, make a lame joke and disappear.

It's hard to muster up the energy to write more about this piece of cinematic garbage because, in truth, there's not much more to it. The "Unrated" edition (a light "R" if not a heavy "PG-13," which it was originally rated) clocks in at barely 93 minutes, including the credits, so it's not like writer-directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer were really straining themselves. Considering the wealth of material in fantasy and superhero films available to them, they truly underperform, even for hacks. I feel free to call them hacks because this film does exactly what their two prior works together did; recycle the same, lame breast, flatulence and gay jokes in a setting that is supposedly a parody of far better works.

The acting in this movie is just plain terrible. Kal Penn brings none of his sense of wit to his performance, leaving the flaccid script to fall dead in his deliveries. Jayma Mays does nothing so distinct as to imitate Anna Ferris. One wonders why the directors didn't use Ferris given how flawlessly Mays copies her performance. Even established greats like Fred Willard who plays Aslo, a parody of Aslan, who has proven he can be the funniest man on screen in films like Best In Show, falls completely flat. Like Penn, he has a great sense of comic timing which does not come through at all in this work.

Indeed, there's nothing enjoyable about Epic Movie and little more to write about. There are no genuine characters per se as all of them are simply parodies of characters from other films. Their role is not to be distinctive, interesting or illustrate character growth, they are supposed to mirror characters established in other fantasy or superhero films. Sadly, they do not even do that with any distinction.

If you're looking for something worth watching, you won't find it here. I was looking forward to the movie and I didn't laugh a single time, so lame was the humor. The featurettes on the DVD are not funny or interesting or even remotely insightful, making the entire DVD a waste of time. It's not entertaining; geeks will not find it funny or insightful. Fans of cinema in general will not find it clever or amusing. Indeed, the only people I can think who might find something of value in it are children lacking in any judgment, taste, or intellect. People amused by shiny objects.

Sigh. No, probably not even them.

For other films with Jennifer Coolidge, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Igor
American Dreamz
Zoolander
Legally Blonde

0/10

For other movies, visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Films Not Worth Reviewing, Vol. 2 - Date Movie

The Good: It has Alyson Hannigan in it . . . (That's a stretch)
The Bad: Terrible acting, No character development, Dumb plot, NOT FUNNY!
The Basics: Alyson Hannigan cannot save this terrible film that references more than parodies. I didn't laugh once. Not once.


Today is the first of (hopefully) two days where I review two movies that are rather close together in terms of plot and concept, but are dramatically far apart as far as quality. Both are parodies of films oriented toward teen audiences and are spoofs of romantic comedies. The first of the two movies is Date Movie, a flick brought to market by the success of Scary Movie. It was written by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (the latter directed it as well) and they are plugged as "two of the six writers of Scary Movie." Based on my experience with Scary Movie 4 (reviewed here!), I watched Date Movie in spite of this. My logic going in with an open mind to this flick was that in order to get the subsequent Scary Movie movies made, the first one must have been fairly original and funny, so by logical extension, if the franchise was splitting off into "Date Movies," the first one might offer the best chance for humor.

Well, when I'm wrong, I'm terribly wrong.

Julia Jones, an overweight single woman who works in a restaurant with a multicultural family, falls in love at first sight with the wealthy blonde Grant Funkyerdoder. After surviving a reality television show to begin dating him, Julia and Grant fall in love. Sadly for Julia, Grant's ex-fiance, Andy, returns in advance of the wedding to attempt to break them up. Along the way, Julia and Grant visit a wedding planner, the soon-to-be-in-laws, and a cat that uses the toilet . . . poorly.

This is stupid. I mean, there's no way to put it other than that. This is a stupid movie and there's nothing even remotely funny about it. I mean, I sat through it, I watched it, I waited to laugh. It's not funny. Moreover, I'm sure I don't understand what makes it "Unrated." I understand that the original version was PG-13 and despite the stupid, supposedly crude humor of Date Movie, whatever was added back into the movie that was kept out of the theatrical version did not make the movie feel "R" to me and it certainly did not feel unrated (when I think unrated, I think movies like Bound, reviewed here, which appeared in art theaters as an unrated movie rather than risk whatever the MPAA was going to hit it with).

Sadly, I think it would take a thirteen year-old mentality to actually enjoy this movie. It opens with a stupid dance number wherein Alyson Hannigan (Julia Jones) dances around in a fat suit to Kalis's song "Milkshakes" while virtually everyone on screen runs from her. The thing is, this sets up the level of humor that is not so much base as it is stupid for the rest of the movie. There is the obligatory slight against homosexuals, a construction worker puts a nail into his head rather than watch the obese woman dance, and other such inane moments that are not funny and are disturbing for the message they send the target audience of this flick.

Those who follow my reviews know that romantic comedies have an awful time passing my bar; they are so often formulaic and obvious, they seldom surprise and they hold up poorly upon rewatching. Date Movie is so much less a parody of romantic comedies than it is a series of references to romantic comedies jumbled up with the intent to amuse. The flick references My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Meet The Parents, Pimp My Ride, The Bachelor, Hitch, The Wedding Planner, and My Best Friend's Wedding, among others.

The problem with Date Movie is that is simply rehashes moments of each of those movies with little twists, like Julia's father spraying everyone with humus (as the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding did with Windex). It's not insightful, it's not funny, and it's more an homage to these conceits from other films than a commentary on them. Instead, Date Movie is simply a place for writers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer to put their usual jokes about farting, fat people and gays in another context. They are no funnier here than they were in a horror movie context and the result is the same disappointed feeling that made me wonder why I was even completing the film.

A good parody plays off the conceits of what is being parodied in order to reveal the recurring faults within a genre, series or work of art. Date Movie ineptly combines elements from markedly better films in order to try to make a comedy that the writers already attempted in another context (and failed at).

More than that, the movie brings down decent actors with it. Eddie Griffin is stiflingly unfunny in his role as Julia's father (I think were supposed to think it's funny that Julia has a black father, an Indian mother and a Japanese sister while she appears fairly white). Instead, it's just more that falls flat.

The real disappointment here is poor Alyson Hannigan. Hannigan had a pretty amazing run on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, where she was able to truly spread her acting wings. In Date Movie, she is plugged into a role where she is playing a type, not a character and she does not do that very well. Instead, she wanders through the flick as pointless as the script moves her and she does it listlessly without any sense of comic timing or ability that she revealed as Willow.

If you saw the preview to Date Movie and thought it would be funny, I'd wonder why, but I would also say that after sitting through the DVD, it's not. This is eighty-five minutes of my life I cannot get back. Fortunately, you need not make the same mistake!

For other works with Tom Lenk, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Transformers
Six Feet Under - Season Four
Buffy The Vampire Slayer

0/10

For other movie reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Best Of The Friedberg/Seltzer Parodies, Vampires Suck Still . . . Well, Sucks.

The Good: Casting, Moments of performance
The Bad: Not funny, Not clever, Off-point bits flop hard.
The Basics: Another lame flick that starts as a parody of vampire movies, Vampires Suck quickly becomes tedious and a general lampoon of pop culture that fails to amuse.


August is a pretty dismal time for movies. I know that doesn't sound terribly professional, but it is very hard to stay in a professional voice when one has finished watching Vampires Suck, the latest parody movie from Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the creative team that brought us Epic Movie and Disaster Movie (among others). In their current bit of cinematic pointlessness, the duo targets the Twilight Saga as the primary source material.

Becca Crane is the new girl in town and she begins to fall for Edward Sullen, the hot boy in school who also turns out to be a vampire. Becca, meanwhile, begins to be attracted to Jacob, who can't seem to keep his shirt on. As Becca tries to decide which one she wants more, she is hunted by a trio of vampires who want her dead.

The plot follows generally with the plots of Twilight and New Moon, with the Sullens going crazy when Becca gets a paper cut. Becca spends her time with Jacob while Edward makes moves to kill himself.

Vampires Suck quickly devolves, like many of the Friedberg/Seltzer productions into a series of slapstick jokes that have nothing to do with the source material they are attempting to criticize. The points they want to make – like Edward's hair being ridiculous or Bella Swan (in Twilight, parodied as Becca Crane) being a melodramatic parody of a young woman as opposed to being a vital character – are pretty much one-note jokes and once they hit, the writers still have to fill up the rest of the ninety minutes (like the last few parodies by the team, they fail to make this a full 90 minute work, though the "unrated" version which is hardly more risque has made up the balance). As a result, the movie turns into gags featuring several other sources. While Buffy The Vampire Slayer and the allusion to Wolf might fit a general theme for the vampire parody movie, the parodies of Lady Gaga, Alice In Wonderland and current popular teen-themed television shows like The Jersey Shore do not.

Instead, the movie degenerates into a series of jokes that are notable mostly for the fact that they are not funny. Like most movies oriented toward the teen demographic – Vampires Suck was released as a PG-13 film with the “Unrated” version dropping on DVD – the humor is oriented toward jokes that make fun of body functions (the vampire strength jokes get old fast and are replaced with fart gags and slapstick humor that involves more posturing than anything else) and jokes at the expense of other people (homosexuals take the brunt of many of the jokes, though teen girls are lampooned pretty consistently as well). Most of the humor is simply not funny and sitting through the movie becomes an exercise in pointlessness: it does not get better as it goes on.

At the moments Friedberg and Seltzer (who also directed the movie) seem most creative, they manage to lift from superior works. So, for example, in a moment when Becca cuts herself, we see a vampire's view of her. This has a hamburger replace her face. This would be clever if Spike in Buffy The Vampire Slayer hadn't made the comment in an early episode about how people were walking around like little happy meals for vampires. The audience that is smart enough to appreciate the joke does not need it as a visual gag.

Of course, Vampires Suck is not intended for a smart audience, it's lowest common denominator humor and it barely registers as humor after the first ten minutes. I laughed a grand total of three times (the best moments are in the trailer).

As for the usual fronts, the plot is a loose parody of the Twilight Saga with random jokes about pop culture thrown in to fill in everything not in the trailer. The characters do not develop or grow. As for the acting, the best is Jenn Proske. Proske captures Kristen Stewart's awkward acting and deliveries and it becomes painful to watch her after a while. While it is initially funny, after a time Proske just comes across as a half-rate version of Stewart. Still, she shines compared to Matt Lantern and Chris Riggi whose talents in this movie are not at all apparent. In fact, the only actor whose performance actually stands out is Charlie Webber. Webber plays James, a parody of Cam Gigadent's character by the same name in Twilight and he looks and moves just like him, which makes his absurd lines work at times.

Ultimately, though, Vampires Suck is another movie not worth watching, not even on DVD. The parody book New Moan is marginally funnier than this. That might have been repetitive and lampooned Stephanie Meyer’s writing style, but it at least stayed focused. Parents: despite not having much in the way of offensive language, there is nothing redeeming about letting your kids see Vampires Suck. And adults, you should know better.

For other films with Ken Jeong, please check out my reviews of:
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
The Hangover, Part II
Despicable Me
Furry Vengeance
Couples Retreat
The Hangover
Step Brothers

1.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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