Film Review of Date Movie
Year: 2006 Reviewer: Chris Docker
A few years ago some people got the idea of making a spoof of horror movies by stringing some of the better known clichés together in a kind of story (Scream) - well they didn't exactly think of the idea - it had been done for years better and on a tiny budget by the anti-establishment filmmakers Troma who parodied Hollywood relentlessly and achieved cult following. But the Scream series appeared to a certain crowd that enjoyed spotting takes on scenes from their favourite horror films delivered with Hollywood polish and comedy resulting from the similarities. They had a certain panache and were reasonably gripping at first, but by Scream 3 and Scary Movie 3, the device was wearing a bit thin. Some of the writers/directors/producers decided to milk it a bit further and try a parody of date movies but the formula doesn't appear to work very well for a number of reasons.
Firstly the 'date' movies on which this film relies are mostly romantic comedies and contain reasonable humour and romantic tension, varying from superficial to award winning. Date Movie, on the other hand, is rarely funny, even when it is trying the 'joke that is so awful it's laughable' routine. As good parody, it loses any strength it might have had by making the films it imitates too obvious, even dressing and making up the actors to look like the stars. The resultant lack of subtlety means there is no satisfaction in guessing - it can only call on gross-out humour of the American Pie variety. The problem with this is that the extreme attempts at coarseness lose their impact early on for lack of story line and also that this type of extreme toilet humour probably repels the very audiences that went to see the original romantic comedies. Date Movie is anything but a date movie.
It also pushes bad taste in a way that I struggled to justify. 'The Office' TV series parodied politically incorrect or obnoxious behaviour in a way that eventually made the viewer feel uncomfortable about it, achieving its aim with ingenious humour and a string of Baftas and Golden Globes; but Date Movie has none of the self-consciousness of The Office or even the Troma movies such as Tromeo and Juliet, Toxic Avenger or Terror Firmer. Even if the lampooning of overweight, ugly or midget people doesn't upset you, the callous scene where the happy couple play a romantic game of gleefully beat up a homeless man may raise your hackles to the point where you find it difficult to forgive the filmmakers (I had to search to find what this was supposedly parodying - apparently a direct to video DVD called 'Bumfights' that is one of the rare films banned these days by the BBFC.) I must admit that the following night, after consuming several pints of very strong lager, I was however laughing almost uncontrollably into my pint at the memory of blonde bombshell Sophie Monk doing a "Don't you Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me" routine to upset the newly to-be-weds, but with that amount of alcohol probably even Chicken Little would have had me in stitches.
A last dregs possibility for a drunken lads night out, Date Movie fails on most other levels, and hardly a movie to take your date on unless you are both very drunk, fed up with even good romantic comedies, and find each other's loud and uncontrolled rectal noises hilariously funny.
Rating: 5/10
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