Date Movie
Written and Directed by: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
Starring: Alyson Hannigan, Adam Campbell, Sophie Monk, Eddie Griffin, Tony Cox, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge
Rated: PG-13 for continuous crude and sexual humor, including language.
Parental Notes: This is a very crude film, and while it’s rated PG-13 some parents may not be comforatble with their children seeing it.
“Date Movie,” brought to us by two of the six guys who wrote “Scary Movie,” is a send-up of every date movie cliché its creators could think of and work into the film, with a few non-date-movie references thrown in for good measure. It has liberal amounts of gross-out humor, characters who are less characters than they are coatracks to hang jokes upon, and is as over-the-top and cheesy as one mght expect. Really, if you’ve seen either of the “Scary Movie” installments, you can pretty much guess what you’re in for.
What little plot there is revolves around Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan, “American Pie”), who works as a waitress at her family’s restaurant and longs for a Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet. She finds him in Grant Fonkyerdoter (Adam Campbell), a very handsome, very British guy who falls for her instantly even though she’s incredibly overweight. Of course, there are plenty of things in the way of their Happily Ever After. The most challening are Grant’s supermodel ex Andy (Sophie Monk, “The Mystery of Natalie Wood”), who wants him back, and Julia’s father Frank (Eddie Griffin, “Deuce Bigalow”) who wants her to marry someone from her own Black-Indian-Japanese-Jewish cultural background. With the help of Hitch (Tony Cox, “Bad Santa”) she sets out to get him anyway.
The movie’s humor comes from a long series of throwaway jokes which are chiefly funny because we can see them coming. This isn’t the laughter of amazement or surprise but of recognition. There are references to date movies from “Say Anything” to “The Wedding Planner” as well as to “Kill Bill,” “Lord of the Rings,” and various music videos. Some of the jokes are drawn out a little too long, such as Grant’s family’s cat, who is clever enough to use a toilet but has a case of irritable bowel syndrome to rival Ben Stiller’s in “Along Came Polly.” This is lowbrow humor at its lowest, and if you don’t find a cat humping a corpse to be funny, you probably won’t enjoy most of the shtick in the film.
Fortunately, the main actors have the one vitally important characteristic in a film like this: a willingness to throw themselves completely into roles which require utterly humiliating themselves. Hannigan wears a huge fat suit for the first third of the film and cavorts around while the camera captures every cellulite-mimicing jiggle. Campbell has to do everything from faking an orgasm more violently than Meg Ryan in “When Harry Met Sally” to being pelted with food while holding a boom box over his head. Even so, both of them are completely into their roles and sincere. There isn’t a trace of fear or embarassment in either performance, and that in itself is impressive. Hannigan has the advantage of having three “American Pie” films under her belt, but Campbell is a comparative newcomer, his only previous credit being the short-lived TV series “Commando Nanny.”
“Date Movie” is not very original by its very nature, and it’s full of toilet humor and uneven pacing. It’s less a film than a collection of comedy sketches strung together and containing the same central characters. If you are only looking for something to kill an hour and a half (it clocks in at only 85 minutes) and enjoyed the genre, you will probably enjoy it. Those looking for any actual romance, plot, or intelligent humor will be better served elsewhere.