Scary Movie
Keenan Ivory Wayans ain't gonna get you this time -- sad to say, those days are
fading fast. Scary Movie takes the Wayans clan deeper into comic
purgatory. Parody works when the mechanics of a stock plot give way
effortlessly to a punch line (see Airplane) and the jokes are a function
of the action. Despite a credited crew of six writers (including junior
Wayanses Shawn and Marlon), this effort flops because the jokes, which are
piled on with encyclopedic fervor, are extraneous -- even though the film
rehashes Scream scene for scene and at times line for line. The acting
doesn't help: with the exception of the imbecilic mugging of Marlon Wayans, the
actors play it so flat that they never create the stock types the jokes should
play off. Scary Movie has its moments (particularly the ganja humor),
but it remains clueless. "Did Scream have a plot? Did I Know What You
Did Last Summer make any sense?" a killer asks when pressed about his
motive. But which crime is he accounting for? The murders or the movie? At
the Harbour Mall, Hoyts Providence Place 16, Showcase, Tri-Boro, and Woonsocket
cinemas.
-- Peter Keough
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