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| Director
: |
David Zucker
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| Starring
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Anna Faris, Regina Hall,
Andre Benjamin |
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| The plot of
Scary Movie 4 |
Rumor has it Scary Movie 5 is ready for the green
light, as soon as SM4's opening weekend receipts
are counted. With a crowd-friendly PG-13 rating
and the team of director Zucker, writer Craig
Mazan, and producer Robert Weiss in place, we're
expecting a major triumph. And if a fifth installment
is inevitable, it's not like they will hurt for
material over the next year or two; just scan
our list of summer movies and you could write
50 pages of jokes in an hour. We just have one
question: How will Brenda die this time? |
Scary Movie
4 Movie Review |
Review by DENNIS
HARVEY:
The even numbers don't
favor the "Scary Movie""Scary Movie"
franchise. Inspiration ran dry for the Wayans Brothers
in No. 2; now successors David ZuckerDavid Zucker &
Co suffer gag fatigue following up their moderately
improving efforts on the third installment. "Scary
Movie 4" finds horror parody overshadowed by ho-hum
groin blows, C-list celebrity cameos, slapstick child
abuse, soon-to-be-forgotten hip-hop personalities, plus
scatalogical and gay jokes; real laughs are few. Nonetheless,
hardtophardtop and ancillary coinage should be robust,
with the horror genre's continued high popularity clinching
pic's pre-sold lowbrow appeal.After briefly getting
Dr. Phil and Shaquille O'Neal into "Saw I's"
central predicament, then bringing back Charlie SheenCharlie
Sheen from "Scary 3" for a Viagra-impaired
suicide, series star Anna FarisAnna Faris as dumb blonde
Cindy Campbell gets a job as nursemaid to an infirm
elderly woman (Cloris Leachman). Latter's house is haunted
by a malevolent ghost child a la "The Grudge."
But before she can dig too deeply into that mystery,
Cindy gets distracted by the handsome neighbor next
door, divorced and negligent working-class dad Tom Ryan
(Craig BierkoCraig Bierko). Then aliens attack, and
Tom flees with the kids he's semi-estranged from a la
"War of the Worlds"..more..
Review By Lesley Chow:
Having director David Zucker (The Naked Gun)
take on the latest Scary Movies has made the franchise
slightly more watchable. By now, the hapless style of
humour is old school: the inner groan is part of the
joke, so any kind of sloppiness is hard to fault. Even
so, this series of action spoofs is difficult to watch.
Generally, the better scenes tend to involve a straight-faced,
blundering figure (such as Leslie Nielsen); the worst
feature actors like Regina Hall, who insist on responding
to the comedy with smirks, or uncomprehending frowns.However,
the film benefits from having that affable big goof,
Craig Bierko, alongside the younger actors. While he
doesn't have quite the same level of skill, Bierko reminds
me of Brendan Fraser: a classically trained theatre
actor who moved to Hollywood, and now plays a big lunk
breaking things (Fraser was at his best putting his
fist through a whole cake in Monkeybone.) Bierko's brawn
is matched by his amiability, and he often seems like
an older cousin roped into children's games, who ends
up rather liking them.I was interested by the way the
political skits were played. For instance, when the
film sends up George W Bush hearing about the Twin Towers
attacks, this incident is treated on the same level
as any other: as if it was just a ubiquitous ad, or
Tom Cruise jumping on a couch..More..
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