Griffin barely saves Date Movie

February 20, 2006 —

If you like any of the Scary Movie films, then maybe you will like Date Movie. Then again, maybe you won't. The first two Scary Movies were funny partly because of the jokes and partly because of the actors. Shawn and Marlon Wayans, David Cross, and Chris Elliot helped make those movies work, allowing the audience to look past the occasional bad joke.

Date Movie survives for the very same reason. Thanks to Eddie Griffin, the consistently funny Fred Willard, and a cameo by Lil Jon, Date Movie is at least viewable.

Unfortunately, the bad jokes nearly outnumber the good ones, making it hard to recommend this movie to anyone who really loves classic spoof movies like Airplane! or Naked Gun.

Perhaps with Date Movie the problem lies in the material. This is a movie that sets out to make fun of romantic comedies. Most of these movies are so bad on their own that parodying them can be a difficult task.

But Date Movie parodies, and it parodies a lot. There must be at least three dozen movies that crop up within this comedy, some of them obvious for parody (When Harry Met Sally) and some of them unexpected (Kill Bill). However, you may find yourself wondering which is more sad - some of the jokes that Date Movie tries to pull off, or how many of the parodied movies you recognize.

Many of the laugh out loud moments in the movie are the result of physical humor and, to be honest, Eddie Griffin. He deserves some credit for being funny even when he's not really trying. After all, Griffin nearly single-handedly saved Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, and that is something worth bragging about.

But what spoils the fun of Date Movie are the pointless low-brow jokes. I don't know who thought it would be funny to include an overly long scene of a cat, in a rip-off of a memorable moment from Meet the Parents, having a bad case of feline diarrhea on the toilet. Because it's not funny. Really.

If you need an excuse for why some of the jokes are just stupid, then I guess you could say that the movie stuck to the PG-13 content level when it could have gone all out and taken on an R rating. Scary Movie was rated R, and there was no shortage of sex jokes in that one. Date Movie is a bit tamer - perhaps too much.

I could go on about how this movie could have been better and try to figure out why it came up short, but a movie like this is not worth the time or effort.

Is anybody out there really expecting Date Movie to top their favorites list, or even make it into the top ten? Probably not. So in that respect, this feature meets expectations.

It is an occasionally funny spoof that doesn't make you think much, if at all. But in the end, the jokes and the movie itself are ultimately forgettable.