film reel image

film reel image

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Scary Movie 5 2013 * 1/2 Stars

Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Year: 2013
Rated PG-13
Rating: * 1/2 Stars
Cast: Simon Rex, Ashley Tisdale, Charlie Sheen
  
As I entered the theater to view Scary Movie 5, I had a feeling that it would be a lousy movie. I mean, I knew what I was getting into. Truth is, I probably shouldn't have gone. My ten dollars along with the $10 contribution of millions of other moviegoers is the main reason why these films continue to get made. Like I said in my previous review of Scary Movie (2000), these turkeys don't cost a lot to make. This one was probably around $20 million. It ended up making a little more than $60 million worldwide. Which brings me to my next thought, I don't think the people working on them care whether they are bad or not. They know that the misguided audience member will somehow get duped into thinking they're seeing something relevant. But after 80-85 short nutrition free minutes (that's the normal running time), they as an audience, just wasted an amount of life that will never come back. Every second counts you know in the stratosphere that is movie land.

Now I liked the first Scary Movie. As I stated in my review of it, I thought it was the first of its kind. Just like Airplane (1980) spoofed airports and flying, this one was an original spoof of horror films. But they really should have stopped after the first one. I remember seeing the last 20 minutes of it and realized that a sequel would not work, should not work, and will not work. Scary Movie 5 makes some big mistakes, humongous I tell you. The first is having it be rated PG-13. That's difficult to pull off because the tone is lazy. Everyone is basically trying to project R rated humor in a PG-13 film. I guess the studios are trying to bring in a younger crowd. This is, in my opinion, is to make money. What a silly way of thinking. The first Scary Movie was a huge box office success. It had the cojones to push the envelope on gross out humor. That's why I recommend it even to this day. Scary Movie 5 is a tired exercise that maybe belts out three and four genuine guffaws, that's it. Then there is the second mistake this film commits which is trying to spoof the Paranormal Activity movies. It would have worked had it been done maybe 4 or 5 years ago when it was a fresh concept in everybody's mind. But just like the Scary Movie franchise, there have been I guess three Paranormal Activity sequels/prequels ever since. And let's face it, those movies have pretty much already spoofed or parodied themselves. Finally, there is the preview of this movie which I saw a couple times before viewing the actual product. Some of the scenes in it were actually kinda funny. Guess what, almost none of them are in the final cut. Are you kidding me, wow what a clever bait and switch.

I could go on and on how disposable this film is but I'll refrain. Here's one more tidbit: Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan do a cameo in the first five minutes of Scary Movie 5. It was probably the funniest portion of the movie. I kinda wondered why they weren't the stars and had been asked to carry the weight. But who are we kidding, their careers have already been dented enough. I'm starting to wonder if they even wanted to get things back on track. I guess not. Oh a lot of washed up entertainers seem to taint the heck out of this thing. In addition to Sheen and  Lohan, we have Snoop Dogg, Heather Locklear, Molly Shannon, Jerry O'Connell, Jasmine Guy (yeah, I couldn't make this up if I tried), and Mike Tyson (he was in the film for 10 seconds, good for him). They must be really desperate to be on screen cause it seems like we haven't seen them in a long while.

Here's another thing I was wondering: Did the actual Morgan Freeman do the narration for Scary Movie 5 or was someone imitating him? Lord I hope not because if it was actually Freeman, I might have to stop going to movies forever. I might be scarred for life.

If you really wanna check out this abomination, it's your choice. Just stay away from the closing credits. They're outtakes that are much worse than the movie itself. And they feel staged like they were actually scripted. Yeah I payed my ten bucks and sat in the theater. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably just go home and watch dust form. That's quality entertainment compared to this.

Written by Jesse Burleson

No comments:

Post a Comment