REVIEW:
The most interesting thing about Scary Movie, the new installment of the series Scary Movie (Yes, this title is about as stupid as when Scream 5 decided to just call itself Scream again,) is how the Wayans Brothers managed to fool us into thinking this movie might actually be good. The way they did that… by going away for well over a decade as the series went into the hands of other filmmakers, and then putting out a pretty solid trailer that advertised the Wayans Brothers being back, and the idea that nothing was off limits now.
Well, turns out there are things off limits. In fact, the movie isn’t nearly as political or social commentary oriented as the trailer would have you believe. On top of that, what those of us who went into this movie expecting that maybe it would be decent forgot, is that the other Wayan’s Brothers Scary Movie films weren’t very good. The first one was okay. Not especially funny, certainly not great, but half decent. Then the second one was lousy.
So there was actually no reason to think this movie might be good, other than a fun trailer and some false promises. The reason why it’s bad… it has nothing to offer. No real plot. Just a riff on Scream with little quick moments thrown in from time to time that reference other movies, whether they make sense here or fit into this plot or not.
Case in point, at one point the news reporter who is investigating the murders goes to a plastic surgeon to try to make herself look younger, and he gives her some mysterious liquid called “The Stuff,” which is meant to reference the Demi Moore movie The Substance from about two years ago. Now, does it make sense that we go on a one-scene side plot with this reporter, who is barely in the movie? Of course not. But it is just to reference that other movie, as if just the fact that they are referencing it is automatically funny. It doesn’t work like that. Not everything is funny. You have to earn laughs. This movie most certainly doesn’t.
Instead of actual humor, what we get are mostly dildo and butt plug jokes. We get toilet humor at its most disgusting. It’s as if this movie were made for teenage boys. And maybe it was. But considering the R rating, one would think they might have a little fun with some sexual humor if nothing else. If you want to do toilet humor, get creative, like in Harold and Kumar when are boys found themselves in the stalls of a woman’s bathroom unintentionally listening to a game of “Battle Shits.”
There’s nothing funny ro creative like that here. In fact, the movie barely references other flicks besides Scream. Every once in a while there’s a one quick scene reference, but that’s about it. So for example, in what is probably the best joke of the movie, a bunch of kids find Smokey’s drug collection and take some, and the next thing you know, they are running around the neighborhood with their arms out, just like the kids in Weapons. And that’s it That’s the best joke of the movie. It has nothing to do with the plot, and really isn’t especially funny other than coming up with a clever reason for why the kids would be running like that. But it starts and ends there, with that one scene, and is then forgotten.
Even though the other movies weren’t all that much better, I still expect more from the Wayans Brothers. They’ve been around since In Living Color, which actually was creative and fun. And they’ve seen the way that humor has changed through the years, from the SNL crew of the 90s (Sandler, Spade, Rock, Mike Meyers,) to the Frat Pack (Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Luke Wilson,) to the Apatow Crew (Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Danny McBride.) The fact that these guys are still doing the exact same humor they did about twenty five years ago, for the same series, and haven’t changed with the times at all, tells you how little they actually care. It’s a real shame, because there were some great movies on the table that really could have been parodied nicely (like Sinners,) it’s just a shame that this wasn’t the movie to do it.