Royal Purple

Issue date: 2/6/08 Section: Web Extras

Zinsli [Click to enlarge]

After years of sitting on my couch watching movies almost nonstop, there is one genre that is entirely more disappointing than any other: spoofs. With movies like "Date Movie" or "Epic Movie" in the genre, it's easy to see what I mean.

These types of films didn't always suck though. There used to be movies made that mocked other movies and pop culture that didn't feel like going to the dentist to get teeth pulled. Classics like "Airplane" and "Spaceballs" are still as funny today as they were when they came out.

This new brand of spoof movies are so influential that I actually can't stop talking about them, but for the same reason someone would talk about a colonoscopy: they hurt.

I don't know if everyone has seen "Epic Movie," but I got the chance this week to sit down and watch it; I have to say that it is easily the dumbest movie I've ever seen. I don't think I can stress that part enough.

It was almost unbearable to watch. The only thing that even caught my attention for even a second was Carmen Electra, but then she started talking and that all changed. I know she's beautiful, but the lady couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. And for that reason alone, Hollywood puts her in every spoof movie they make.

But it's not fair to just blame her. A lot of people are at fault for the current problems of this once-great genre. Some Hollywood executive at one time or another had to have said, "Let's make a whole movie that makes fun of a bunch of other movies," and then some idiot actually wrote that idea down. A writer actually got paid to write "Scary Movie 4," a director accepted the job, and actors showed up to the set. That is the same process that has made us lucky enough to have the new movie "Meet the Spartans."

There must be some kind of communication breakdown in there somewhere, but I have yet to find it. But in reality, we are to blame for these movies. There is no way Hollywood would keep pumping these bombs out if we weren't paying to go see them. Every time you buy a ticket to one of these movies you're perpetuating the cycle.

OK, you might think these movies can't be that bad. If so, you're wrong; they are. It's not just that the spoofs are cheesy or that they rely on fart and poop jokes way too often, but these jokes can't stand up on their own. The jokes from "Spaceballs" would be funny even if you didn't know you were watching a spoof on "Star Wars." These new movies can't claim that.

In the film "Meet the Spartans," we get a preview of a scene where Donald Trump cuts Spiderman's web and right before he does, he utters "you're fired." Wasn't that four years ago when he first said that? How could that still be funny today? Why weren't the editors, if there were any, bringing this up with the director, if there was one?

There's too many questions that I'm afraid will never be answered. I hope the next spoof movies will be more like "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" and less like running backwards through a cornfield naked. I will not be going to see "Meet the Spartans," and I hope you don't perpetuate the cycle either.

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