Sunday 31st August 2008, 23:23

The aptly-titled Disaster Movie

As if anyone's particularly surprised, Disaster Movie has been voted down to the unenviable position of worst movie ever on the IMDb. I'll be honest - I've not seen it, nor will I ever, but some movies you feel a certain sense of justification in slamming sight unseen, and the entire series of Disaster Movie, Date Movie, Meet the Spartans and their ilk are all the lowest of the low. I remember the good old days when spoofs took aim at individual films, or at least genres, and had (gasp) plots, and jokes, rather than just dressing someone up like the star of a recent release and passing it off as funny.

I think the last movie that even came close to being a "proper" spoof was Not Another Teen Movie, from 2001 - not a great film, but it at least limited itself to a specific genre, knew its material, knew the cliches, how to hit the right tone, etc. It may not have left me rolling in the aisles, but at least it was making an effort. Scary Movie was released the year before, and that managed to have a few solid gags involved too (although it did break the cardinal rule: when the joke is excessive off-screen violence, stay off-screen until the cut - don't do an elbow drop on someone out of sight then clamber back into shot). Having said that the fact that it was parodying Scream, which was itself pretty much a parody, albeit a serious one, didn't bode well for the future (and the rapid downturn in quality of the Scary Movie films proves the point).

But where are the modern-day Airplane!s, Top Secret!s and Hot Shot!s? 3 films I've only just realised while typing that all feature exclamation marks in their titles. You can throw the Naked Gun films in there too, just for good measure. Sure the sequels all suffered slightly (the Naked Guns less so than others, except Top Secret! which didn't have a sequel, criminally), but I'd take Hot Shots! Part Deux over Epic Movie any day.

The thing is, I don't even really blame the filmmakers (OK, a bit) - if people go and see turgid sewage like these movies, then they'll only make more, and more, and more. How ill-informed are the movie-going public that they'll see a trailer without a single decent laugh, starring no-one they've ever heard of, and yet they'll go traipsing off to the cinema to see a pile of crap just because it's got some bloke looking a bit like Will Smith banging his head on a lamppost? There's also the pedant in me who always wonders how a superhero can be knocked out by a lamppost, and please don't tell me that's the joke, because that would involve a two-step thought process (1 - man bangs head, falls over, 2 - it's even funnier because he's a superhero!). I refuse to believe the makers of this have bothered getting to step 2, and even if they did that doesn't make the situation any funnier.

Quite theraputic, this ranting business. I may do more of it. Suffice to say if you ever see a trailer for a "comedy" that has no actual jokes in it, put it from your mind for ever more and seek out anything better, which will take about an eighth of a second. Oh look, a dog chasing its tail! And there's a balloon floating into the sky! A cloud! The list goes on.

Facebook