Film review: Epic Movie (2007), directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer

To be honest, I’m not sure it’s worth the bother writing this review. The IMDb rating of 2.2 out of 10 kind of gives it away, making it #65 on the Bottom 100 list. It’s another one of those comedies with bold, red letters spelling out the title. Cheap and nasty, you could say, the only saving grace is that while it’s not actually better than Date Movie, at least this one wasn’t insulting. Okay, well, not in the same way.

The four main characters are called Lucy (Jayma Mays), Edward (Kal Penn), Susan (Faune Chambers) and Peter (Adam Campbell). They’re all orphans, and all are taken from their own cinematic settings. Lucy’s from The DaVinci Code, Edward from Nacho Libre, Susan from Snakes on a Plane and Peter is one of the X-Men. They come together at Willy’s Chocolate Factory, having each found a Golden Ticket.

Willy turns out to be very creepy and wanting their body parts for ingredients, so the four try to hide. Lucy finds a wardrobe, and inside, “Gnarnia” (silent G). There’s a White Bitch (Jennifer Coolidge) to try and defeat, but before that, they have to train (at Hogwarts – with The Kids in the Hall‘s Kevin McDonald as Harry Potter), be saved by pirates (“Jack Swallows”) and make lots of not that funny jokes.

The funniest part of the movie is probably when the White Bitch is first seen. Last time we watched this, Mr T and I both gleefully exclaimed “Stifler’s Mom!” – only to be followed by Edward saying exactly that seconds later! And if that’s the funniest part of the movie, well … it’s not great, really.

What happened with the movie parodies that were actually funny? Airplane! is hilarious, as are the two Hot Shots! films, not to mention The Naked Gun. They might be silly, but they’re clever in ways this movie – and all the other ones of the same ilk – completely fail to be. Yes, it’s amusing to see Chewbacca in Aslo’s camp, and the lookalikes have a pretty good likeness and mannerisms are down to a tee e.g. when it comes to Jack Swallows. Not sure why Lucy acts lobotomised, but did we really need Mr Beaver to be the civil partner of Mr Tumnus and Aslo (a half man, half lion) being an arse? Just a very low level of comedy. Decidedly not funny.

1 out of 5 spoofs, and that’s me being generous.