Epic Movie DVD > Reviews > EPIC??? HARDLY!!! AWFUL??? UNDENIABLY!!!

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Disliked it
Story	Very weak
Characters / Performances	Unmemorable
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Weak

Advantages:	you'll laugh once or twice
Disadvantages:	you'll not laugh MORE THAN once or twice .

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I'm generally a fan of spoof movies. The "Naked Gun" films, "Hot Shots", the "Scary Movie" films (the first three at least) were all entertaining and at times hilariously funny. "Date Movie" and "Not Another Teen Movie" were mildly amusing. Even the vastly inferior "Shriek if You Know What I Did Last Friday 13th" had its moments, even if they were few and far between, or too subtle to be noticed.

So although the calbre of parody movies has distinctly gone down of late, I did have mild expectations that the latest of the genre "Epic Movie" would also entertain me. Unfortunately all I found was a cash cow which has been completely milked dry and is now just causing the rest of us to waste our money on the kind of childish humour which would barely impress a four year old.

Bear with me here guys. Because I'm about to do something I rarely actually do. I'm about to completely slate a film. I'm about to tell you it would be a better idea to poke out your eyes rather than watch this drivel. But I'm not all that good at being a bitch, so go easy on me please!

In the same way that "Scary Movie" spoofed horror films and "Date Movie" spoofed romantic comedies, "Epic Movies" has the more, shall we say epic, task of spoofing such big budget blockbusters of the last few years such as "The DaVinci Code", "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "The Lord of The Rings", among others. Which in theory makes it sound like it could be interesting. In practice? It's rubbish.

So where has it all gone wrong? First of, let's start with the cast. At least "Date Movie" had Alyson Hannigan to liven it up. Basically the only half decent talent we have in "Epic Movie" is Jennifer Coolidge as the White Bitch, and even she doesn't seem quite as funny as usual in so distinctly unfunny surroundings. Apart from that we have Kal Penn from "Harold and Kumar Get The Munchies" and Adam Campbell who was the main bloke in "Date Movie". And that's pretty much it. Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against casts of unknowns, but when a film has nothing really going for it in general, a couple of famous faces can help it along a bit. The only cast member who puts in a notable performance, in my humble opinion, is Jayma Mays as Lucy - and this was mainly because she bears more than a passing resemblance to Anna Faris.

So now the story - man, I CRINGE just thinking about it. Four orphans, Edward, Peter, Lucy and Susan (names sound familiar, folks?) all have hard lives. Edward is in Nacho Libre territory, Peter in some sort of X-Men type mutant school, Lucy has walked into the Da Vinci code and Susan is fending off snakes on a plane. Hmmm, obvious. In their separate desperate situations, they all come across Golden Tickets to go to ... you guessed it, a chocolate factory. Once there, the maniacal owner tries to use their body parts in his sugary sweet concoctions. NOT particularly entertaining to watch, let me tell you. In fact, it almost made me want to start pulling off MY body parts for something to distract me.

In order to escape, they hide in a wardrobe and find themselves in the land of Gnania. By the way, inexplicably all body parts are back in order at this point - apparently. But the evil Edward meets the White Bitch and decides to betray his fellow orphans, not realising that the White Bitch is exactly that, and that he and his new companions have a much bigger role to play in Gnarnia.

But honestly, it was genuinely hard to care whether these people, who are nothing short of complete IDIOTS, were actually going to survive and triumph over Jennifer Coolidge. The story sucked and the way the various different movies were combined together made no sense whatsoever - Captain Jack Swallows was in league with the White Bitch, I mean what the heck was all THAT about??? At least other spoof films at least generally make the effort to create an actual story and have a certain cohesiveness to the way different aspects of different films are combined. This just seemed to have been thrown together without any thought whatsoever. I can only assume they were trying to make the film in a matter of days, because nothing else would explain the utter garbage that has been produced.

I would be lying if I said there was not the odd funny moment, and since I've been a complete cow thus far, i think I should point this out. The odd bit of humour, however, is limited to a couple of one liners mentioning characters roles in other films (Edward shouting "Stiffler's Mom" when he sees Coolidge's character for the first time, and later saying "I think I've been there before" when they pull up outside White Castle) and the Pirates of the Caribbean rap video. And even that starts to get boring about thirty seconds into it.

Truly the most unfunny spoof ever made. (Until the next one comes, I suppose...)

Here let's make it easier - to save you even CONSIDERING watching it, here is a quick sum up of the few funny lines I haven't yet mentioned:

Edward: A chocolate river! Mmm! Mmm! Chocolate! Hahahaha!
Willy: That's actually the sewer line.

Peter: We have something the White Bitch doesn't.
Lucy: Perky breasts?

Yep, that's pretty much it.

I saw this film on a Sunday in February. It was an odd weekend. I had my leaving night from my old department on the Friday night, I realised I possibly fancied one of my best mates (a guy, don't worry) on the Saturday morning, went to see the FAAAARRRR superior "Hot Fuzz" on the Saturday evening, saw this utter disaster of a film on the Sunday afternoon, ended up kissing my mate on the Sunday night. It was a very eventful weekend, to sum up. A very NICE weekend, all in all. It's a shame I have this rotten film engrained in the memory of it all.

Verdict - whether you see it in a cinema, on a shelf in your Global Video or sitting on top of the dvd player in your mate's house, give it a wide berth. It's a waste of money and it's a waste of time. It IS actually epic - epically awful!!!