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Disaster Movie

Starring Matt Lanter, Vanessa Minnillo, and Crista Flanagan
Directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
Rated PG-13

As a critic, sometimes you can treat a movie more harshly than it probably deserves. That's not possible with Disaster Movie. I may have a hard time describing how unmistakably and unrelentingly bad this motion picture is.

In a weird way, I've been waiting for Disaster Movie for years. I can say without hesitation that it is one of the very worst movies I've ever seen, and the worst example of the medium I've reviewed since Swept Away back in 2002. It's probably worse than that film, in fact, because while Swept Away had terrible acting, a script that went nowhere, and a very questionable morality, at least it seems to be unaware of how bad it really is.

Disaster Movie, on the other hand, comes across as almost proud of its lack of entertainment value and original thought. I do not share its pride.

Spoofs have fallen off in recent years. When you look at the best comedies ever, three of them are outright genre spoofs - Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Airplane! This generation is stuck with the Movie movies, a collection of lowest common denominator efforts like Epic Movie and Date Movie that send up particular films in their chosen genres and take aim at the fragile nature of tabloid celebrity to fill the gaps.

But Disaster Movie isn't about disaster movies. The first "disaster" happens 25 minutes into a 90 minute film. (That is, if you don't count the existence of this movie as a disaster on its own.) Instead, we're...uh...treated (?) to a parade of unfunny movie and pop culture references, with everyone from Amy Winehouse to the Sex and the City girls being lampooned. Iron Man, Batman, The Incredible Hulk, and Indiana Jones get pie in the face, too, none of which, of course, has anything to do with the story. To be fair, there's no story to have anything to do with.

Hannah Montana falls victim to this movie's dulled wit. Why 32-year-old Crista Flanagan is playing a 15-year-old is a reasonable question; couldn't the casting director find an affordable teenage actress to read those insipid lines?

Elsewhere, Flava Flav, Jessica Simpson, and Dr. Phil are dressed down, and you know it's Dr. Phil because the actor providing the really awful impression of the TV counselor introduces himself as "your old friend, Dr. Phil." A tip for young comedians out there: If you have to introduce your impression, try selling real estate or something instead.

There's no effort to weave these celebrity appearances into the story; they're simply being piled on top of one another, I guess, so you can see that this movie reads The National Enquirer and watches movie trailers. Somehow, that's a methodology.

It's embarrassing that Lionsgate chooses to release these films. Do they feel good about it? I can't imagine anything but a very cynical production meeting in which it is decided to keep churning these things out every four months because someone with a corner office is reminded of the P.T. Barnum quote about a fool being born every minute. This is a movie made for idiots. Smart people won't enjoy it. They couldn't possibly.

How can it be that something is this unfunny, this anti-entertaining? It's almost as if the filmmakers are purposely removing better material in favor of the kind of longwinded, outdated, imbecilic garbage served up in Disaster Movie.

Vote with your wallet; don't see this damn movie.