Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
"I'm just a girl. Standing in front of a boy. Asking him to love me."

2006 PG-13 / Romance Parody Directed by: Aaron Seltzer Starring: Alyson Hannigan, Adam Campbell, Carmen Electra

Tagline

From Two Of The Six Writers Of Scary Movie!

Summary Capsule

Um, do I have to? It's just a series of dumb, really dumb parodies of romance movies. Lick some cyanide and save yourself the time.

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Amazon.com: DVD

Justin's Rating: How is naming the guy parodying Hitch "Hitch" supposed to be funny? At all?
Justin's Review: I think I sorta put my finger on the problem of many modern parody flicks when I was talking with Pooly the other day.  I said something to the effect of, "These parodies today rely far too much on modern, passing pop culture references, while the classic parodies of ten, twenty years ago focused far more on long-lasting jokes."  Does that makes sense?  So often when I write, I get the nagging feeling that I could be writing far more eloquently, instead of trying to type garbled words with my elbows and cursing at the spell checker that tells me I’ve misspelled "testosterone" again.

"Lowbrow, is the word we need here, if my thesaurus would just work right.  Maybe we should even invent 'underbrow' just for this."

Anyway.  Back to modern parodies.  Let me ask you a question: How many of you or your friends quoted or watched, within the past year, any of the following: Airplane!, Naked Gun or Hot Shots!?  Now, the same question, but replace the titles of the movies with "Scary Movie" and "Not Another Teen Movie".  How’d you come out, there?  I thought so.  It seems that Hollywood today exclusively caters parodies to the teen-and-tween market who have limited attention spans and want to laugh at some goofy MTV or American Idol reference instead of Leslie Nelson using a samurai sword pen to assassinate a fish that bit his nose.  Heck, do you see a common thread between the titles of Scary Movie, Not Another Teen Movie and Date Movie?  Is the word "movie" supposed to be inherently funny, or is someone just being lazy with generic stupidity?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s entirely okay for a parody to make pop culture references.  But those should be a distant third to (most important) funny, side-splitting gags and jokes, and well-known movie parodies.  Excuse the pun, but Date Movie was dated by the time it landed in movie theaters, and will be entirely superfluous by the time this review actually makes it to the front page of MRFH.  Among the come-and-gone pop culture references in Date Movie are: The Bachelor, the songs "Milkshake" and "Candy Shop", Paris Hilton’s Carl’s Jr. commercial and Pimp My Ride.  Plus, for a supposed romance movie parody, Date Movie plucks references to surprisingly weird films, like Napoleon Dynamite and Dodgeball.  Double-plus, a huge chunk of the film is pretty much lifted from the lackluster Meet the Fockers, which wasn’t what I’d label "romantic" in any serious fashion.  You get the idea where all this is going, I hope.

I’m meandering because the film isn’t much more than others of its ilk.  Julia (American Pie’s Alyson Hannigan) is a real fatty, and that’s supposed to be funny.  She falls in love with a British guy and then gets the fat sucked out of her so she can woo him.  That's supposed to be funny. They fall in love.  Julia encounters a romantic rival.  There’s a misunderstanding, a break up, and a reunion.  Date Movie is indeed the film that takes bold risks with the romantic genre!  But very much, this plot skeleton exists only to hang on different wacky scenes that reference something in a stale fashion, and then tack on something violently gross just to make people gag and think that gagging is another form of laughter.

My wife, who adores romantic movies the way many old ladies adore the bunions on their feet, had a kick identifying many of the movies Date Movie pokes fun at.  Of course, a parody in itself isn’t too funny without a solid joke to back it up — Julia dresses up like Pretty Woman and walks down the street, okay, but there’s nothing past that.  A Jennifer Lopez lookalike is given a huge butt and… nothing else to work with.  These are flaky references that crumble the second after you touch them.  While there are homages to older romance flicks, such as When Harry Met Sally, the large bulk of parodies come from very modern movies (say, 1999-2005) that our teens-and-tweeners might well recognize.  But for me, there’s precious little thrill to seeing Along Came Polly or How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days brought back up into my consciousness.

While there are a few solid laughs — a "bum fight" and Mr. And Mrs. Smith parody in particular — the vast majority of this flick feels rushed, gross and tacky.  Lowbrow, is the word we need here, if my thesaurus would just work right.  Maybe we should even invent "underbrow" just for this.  It’s the perfect kind of movie for people who don’t quite get "Surely, you can’t be serious." "I am, and don’t call me Shirley."  There are plenty of them out there.  I ran over two today. They don’t walk very well.

This looks funny, doesn't it? BUT IT ISN'T! IT SUCKS! Well, this part is funny... but the rest bit the big one.

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

They probably want you to, but I don't think you'd actually make it to that point.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

Date Movie spoofs on the following flicks (only a handful from the pre-90's): The Seven Year Itch, An Affair to Remember, Fatal Attraction, Say Anything..., When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle, The Nutty Professor, Jerry Maguire, My Best Friend's Wedding, There's Something About Mary, Notting Hill, Meet the Parents, Cast Away, What Women Want, The Wedding Planner, Bridget Jones's Diary, Legally Blonde, Shallow Hal, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Sweet Home Alabama, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Love Actually, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Along Came Polly, Napoleon Dynamite, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Meet the Fockers, Hitch, Monster-in-Law, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Wedding Crashers, The 40 Year Old Virgin, and Rent.

Think I'm being overly harsh on this movie? Rottentomatoes.com, which compiles movie critic ratings, gave this a measly 8% freshness rating (in other words, 92% of critics HATED this film).

Groovy Quotes

Napoleon Dynamite: Idiot! Hell no, I won't marry you! Gosh! Gosh! Gosh!

Galdalf: [Gandlaf is hit in the crotch] My precious!

Julia: You had me at hello.
Grant: I'm just a girl. Standing in front of a boy. Asking him to love me.

Frank: I was wrong about Grant. He's really a nice guy. He even liked you when you were ugly.
Julia: How do you... ?
Frank: I saw it in your flashback.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Scary Movie
• Not Another Teen Movie
• Hot Shots!