 House Party 3 |
|
- The best house party yet.
Summary Capsule
- Kid finds marital love; Play throws like a half-dozen parties in his honor. Also, three annoying brats show up thinking that they can rap.
Mutant Meter
     |
Movie Store [proceeds go toward monthly MRFH upkeep]
Justin's Rating: Bernie brings back the party!
Justin's Review: It’s been two years since the last House Party sequel, and it personally felt like it had been two years since I began this stupid marathon. Why was I doing it? No one I know thinks it’s either cool or horrible that I’m putting myself through these weirdly un-Justinian flicks, and I really doubt that they’ll put "Justin: He Who Watched All Four House Party Movies" on my tombstone. Unless they’re really at a loss for the rest of my life, which is possible.
Not to say there isn’t a lot of bad to be found here. After all, this is a movie series that revolves around the belief that parties in one’s house are the solution for everything, including rabies and high mortgages. We re-join Kid ‘n Play, who have moved on to their "Mid-90’s" phase, which is to say the "We no longer make rap albums and we’re three months away from a ‘Where are they now?’ segment on VH1." But don’t worry, these two are still the boring old farts they ever were.
Despite trading his impossibly tall afro for a tall flower arrangement of dreadlocks, Kid remains the bug-eyed nicey-nice washout who lacks the ability to act anything other than "sincere". I likes my heroes sincere, don’t you? His friend Play, an even sorrier excuse for a one-note character (he hits on girls — there, now you know all of his deep dark secrets), is right there beside him, marveling that they could even convince New Line that they had a hint of popularity left in their apostrophe-laden souls.
The basic story — and it IS basic — is that Kid is getting married to some new girl, Play wants to throw him a bachelor party, and they’re trying to score a record contract on the side. Ho and hum. Happily, the filmmakers seem to recognize that no one cares about Kid ‘n Play either, and thus stack the movie full of secondary comedians and various hip-hop acts in an effort to take your mind away from wanting to bulldoze down both of their houses so that there can be no more parties.
The second I saw the R&B group TLC in headlining roles, a seemingly never-ending shriek came leaping out of my throat. I hated TLC through all of the 90’s, a hatred of righteous persuasion and semi-automatic glowering. Not only were most of their songs highly annoying and vastly overplayed on radio stations, but their attitudes just bugged me so much. I tend to like — what’s the word — nice people, and folks who are shrill and confrontational and then act as though you should fall at your feet and worship them are as far from likable as it gets with me. My personal heaven is being able to chuck paint balloons at each of them tied (and gagged) to posts. Call it Experimental Art in the guise of light torture. So you can imagine my thrill as both their music and their ‘tudes came a-head-waggling into House Party 3.
We also have the pre-pubescent hip-hop group Immature as Kid’s three younger, hornier cousins. You remember Immature, don’t you? What? Of course you do! They’re little kids, and they rap! How precious!
Dumb musical acts aside, the best and brightest reason to partake in HP3 is for the Bernie Mac. With Martin Lawrence bowing out to star in his own films, it created a mediocre comedic vacuum that sucked in some other stand-ups into this series. None hold a candle to Bernie, who charges into Kid’s life as Uncle Vester and thoroughly commands every scene that he’s in. The dinner scene between Kid’s family and his fiancee’s is actually hysterical, and a large part of that is credited to the Bernie Mac. Thanks, Mr. Mac, for saving my brain from self-destruct over this series!
I will give House Party 3 credit for trying, really trying to be something better, while it must’ve been apparent to all involved that this here was a dying franchise. There’s actual jokes — funny ones, at least — that were sprinkled through this movie like yummy croutons on an otherwise bland salad. The various thin storylines culminate in not one, not two, but three separate house parties, which is more than enough party for my buck.
I’ve discovered something about the House Party series that’s made me wiser for noticing it: nothing ever HAPPENS at any of these parties. I was so fed up with how long it took to get to the party in the second film, but now I know it’s because they had no choice. They knew the film would grind to a halt once they got to the party and people just bounced up and down to music with little else going on, so they had to give us something to justify their paychecks. It’s the same in this movie; there are three parties, very little happens at them, and then Kid ‘n Play ride off into the sunset.
I will not weep for you, monsieur Kid and monsieur Play. You had your fifteen minutes, plus about four hours to spare. Now, on to see how your replacements fared, and then to finally put this movie series behind me forever!
 Aww, how adorable. Get the shotgun.
Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?
Groovy Quotes
Guy: Oh, and sorry about the eye. Did you lose that in your luggage also?
Grandma: [about dreadlocks] What’s with all these worms in your hair, boy?
Uncle Vester: If this is Cajun, then I’m Caucasian!
Uncle Vester: Every SUMMER I have to kill somebody…
Uncle Vester: WHOA! My momma dead! Now I gotta cut ya! That’s the rule, cut ya, cut ya!
Girl: You’re a man… THAT is a god!
Showboat: It's 2 o'clock. Do you know where your testicles are?
DVD Review
If you liked this movie, try these: This review page was last updated on 8.8.04 MRFH Home . Reviews . Findaflik . Features! . MRFH Forum
© 2004 Mutant Reviewers From Hell (Original Content). All Rights Reserved.
|
