Date Movie
Review by Clint Morris
Spoof
movies are like bad girls - you just know they’re going to burn
you in the end, yet still you can’t help but be strangely
attracted to them...
So what’s on offer for this big Date? A
pass-by at a Big Fat
Greek Wedding, you’ll also Meet the Parents,
sit down with a well-rumped Wedding
Planner, get some advice from Hitch, hear about My Best Friend’s Wedding
and, rather bizarrely (since it’s not exactly a romantic-comedy,
and it's those films that seem the target here), come face to face with
King
Kong.
Like any spoof movie - well, any spoof movie
since the original Flying
High (aka Airplane)
and possibly, the first Scary
Movie - you’ve already seen all the best bits in the
trailer.
Having seen the ‘cat on the toilet’ gag
(from Meet the Parents)
in the ad, as well as the spot-on Owen Wilson/Wedding Crashers
spoof, there really isn’t much more in the film itself that’ll make you
giggle, snort or wet your ‘roos.
The saving grace of the film, though, is
Alsyon Hannigan (Buffy)
- making quite a large jump from TV starlet to bonafide headline-act
movie star - who carries herself quite well, and is appreciably ready
and willing to do anything. Hopefully we’ll see more of the
charming redhead on the big screen in the near future.
Here, Hannigan plays a preposterously
overweight woman named Julia (that’s the Bridget Jones
gag) that is transformed into a skinny hottie (thanks to ‘Pimp my
Ride’, naturally) so she can register as a contestant on the
reality show, Extreme
Bachelor.
It’s there that she meets her dream man, Grant (Adam Campbell,
who is assumingly channeling Hugh Grant, but it’s hard to know
because this guy’s blonde), and rather instantly, they fall in
love and plan their wedding. Cue the moderately funny movie gags…
Sans
the material, the supporting cast do rather well too here. Eddie
Griffin gets a couple of good moments as he channels Bob De
Niro’s uncompromising father character from the Meet the Parents
films, Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge do rather good take-offs of
Dusty and Babs from the Fockers,
and Australian singer-cum-actress Sophie Monk scores a rather sizable
role as a bimbo that tries to break up the lead twosome. Her
body
gives a rather good performance.
No, it isn’t as good as Scary Movie,
but then, the advertising material does tip-us off to that,
doesn’t it, by reminding us that only “2 of the 6 writers
from Scary Movie” worked on the film. That should say enough.
Typically, it’s got a shorter running time
than Grandma at track and field, so if you’ve got 70 minutes
or so to waste you may find light entertainment here.
2.5 out of 5
Date Movie
Australian release: Thursday 16th of February, 2006.
Cast: Alyson Hannigan, Adam Campbell, Eddie Griffin,
Fred Willard, Sophie
Monk, Tony Cox, Jennifer Coolidge, Judah Friedlander, Carmen Electra.
Director: Aaron Seltzer, Jason Friedberg.
Website: Click here.
Brought to you by MovieHole
|
