This is another spoof from the assembly line that churned out Date Movie.
The critics actually liked this one less than Date Movie, which they hated to
begin with. Epic Movie earned only 2% positive reviews, which was exactly one
positive notice! Surprisingly, the one and
only positive review came from the respected Owen Gleibermann of Entertainment
Weekly!
Average movie fans didn't like it any more than the critics did. As I write this, it is rated the 42nd worst
movie of all time at IMDb.
Frankly, it's not anywhere near the bottom 100 of all time, and it's
actually better
than Date Movie, which had no laughs at all. I'd rate it a cut higher than its
predecessor for a couple of reasons:
1. The spoofs are tied together by a reasonably coherent narrative
structure.
2. There is some nice nudity, including a properly lit full-frontal scene
featuring Audra Lynn.
3. The film has a good moment or two from some reasonably talented people,
like Kal Penn, Crispin Glover, and Stifler's Mom. (Although not one good
moment, sadly enough,
from Fred Willard.)
Don't misinterpret what I am saying. It is a poor movie, just not as poor
as others have claimed. I suppose it would have some appeal for young boys,
since it features plenty of jokes about bodily functions, a plethora of
bickering and head-bopping in the manner of the Three Stooges (spiced with
crotch kicks, just to demonstrate it's not your father's slapstick), and lots
of sexual and pseudo-sexual references. Unfortunately, mom is not going to let
those boys watch this movie unless she is completely in the dark about the
raunchy contents.
If you're past the fifth grade, you'll want to skip it. The film has the
same inherent problem as Date Movie: it has plenty of movie references, but no
real wit or parody. It's like the most obvious film spoofs in the most
juvenile years of Cracked magazine, basically just name-dropping and slapstick
with no real comedy after the "recognition factor." The comic theory, if you
want to call it that, is that if you dress like up like and do an
impersonation of a film character, that is a joke in and of itself. Many
speculate that may have also been the theory of the missing second book of
Aristotle's Poetics, which was supposed to have dealt with comedy. If so, it
would explain why some medieval monk probably shit-canned it, because even in
the Dark Ages, they must have written better jokes than this ...
... although I can't actually recall an example to prove my point.
If you are not familiar with our grading system, you need to
read the
explanation, because the grading is not linear. For example, by
our definition, a
C is solid and a C+ is a VERY good movie. There are very few Bs
and As. Based on our descriptive system, this film is a:
