FilmJudge - Disaster Movie

REVIEW

Disaster Movie
2008
Certificate: 12 | Runtime: 90 | Director: Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer
Starring: Matt Lanter, Vanessa Minnillo, Carmen Electra

Will (Lanter) has just broken up with his girlfriend Amy (Minnillo), which rather dampens his spirit for his upcoming 'sweet 16' party. But the party mood doesn't last for long, as asteroids, tornadoes and all manner of debris is about to hit the city! Will accompanies his friends across the city to rescue Amy, who is trapped...

... screw it. I can't be bothered to write a summary of the thin, irrelevant, jumping-off point this cinematic excrement has for a plot. In their latest referenceathon, talentless hacks Friedberg and Seltzer have outdone their own previous standards of ineptness and laziness by making a film so bad it makes Meet the Spartans look good by comparison. It's useless in every capacity, insulting in its stupidity, infuriating in its smugness... and it's not funny either.

It was around the point when Beowulf had a fight about his sexuality while Kung Fu Panda hit the princess from Enchanted in the face that I realised this was one of the worst films I've ever seen. And if you like the sound of the scene I just described, then two things are true. One, you're an idiot. Two, you're in for a real treat. Because all Disaster Movie has to offer is reminder upon reminder, and reference upon reference. Like all Friedberg and Seltzer's previous creations, this film is not a spoof. A spoof takes the serious things or weak elements of other films and makes fun of them in some capacity. This just has characters we recognise from other films doing slightly wacky stuff. Iron Man gets hit by a cow, as does Hellboy, as does The Incredible Hulk. Where do they come up with these ideas?

It almost goes without saying that, as a result of all this, the film isn't funny. But I'm going to say it anyway - it's not funny. And the 'acting' is generally abysmal as well. The only person in the whole film who seems to have any degree of comic timing is Nicole Parker, who plays the aforementioned princess. Among the other thespian luminaries are Carmen Electra and Kim Kardashian, who I'm pretty sure is only famous because her dad defended O.J. and because she stared in a homemade porno.

There's very little else one can say about Disaster Movie. It's a stinker in every respect. It doesn't make you laugh, it's not clever in the slightest, and it is astoundingly arrogant for such a poor motion picture. Just as an example; I didn't much care for the cocky, overwritten dialogue in Juno, but I now feel that opinion has been dirtied because Disaster Movie tries to mock said dialogue in its own inept way. I gather that the film rather bombed in the US, which might mean Friedberg and Seltzer's days of making these films are numbered. But seeing as how the film industry has already made some more films in the last couple of months, chances are that the useless duo have already written their next masterpiece to reference them all.

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