IMDb Bottom 100 Review – Number 67 Epic Movie

In the late 19th century archaeologists found a cave in northern France, in which it is believed a Cro-Magnon tribe resided in the early parts of the Upper European Paleolithic (Stone Age for the laymen out there). They found figures painted on the wall, the meaning of which eluded scholars for the next century. Even when it was finally deciphered it left everybody utterly puzzled. It was an enigma. Until tonight. The text in the cave read: Is Epic Movie really epic? The answer is no. It is not. But don't take my word for it. Read on for yourself, and see undeniable evidence that Epic Movie, at #67, is being treated very generously. Just stop reading this paragraph already, and continue reading after the title below. The title that reads...

Mr. Tumnus. I'm sure his parents are proud. 

Epic Movie (2007)

This one is one for the god damn books, ladies and gentlemen. Oh don't even get me started. OK get me started please, otherwise this review will be pretty dull. But metaphorically don't get me started. I don't know if you guys remember a review of Plump Fiction (you probably do, but here it is anyway). Epic Movie is sort of the same shtick. Another spoof flick that incorporates several movies into its completely ludicrous story line. It worked back in the day, when the movies actually had their own story line that was, at least, mildly interesting. Like the Naked Gun franchise or most of Mel Brooks' productions. You know, actual substance in and of themselves. This fantastic piece of bovine feces does not. Not even a little. It's just a lot of ripped off cack spun around a story line so ridiculously thin that even the Zodiac Killer writers are wrinkling their noses at it. Spoiler alert: I absolutely hated this shitty movie. I hated it a lot. Nothing really worked. No jokes were funny, no characters were funny, no scene carried any kind of merit or watchability. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Fuck all. I don't know why I'm even impressed, because it's pretty much the going standard down in the cinematic sewers of Hollywood. But even with that in mind, I'm kind of impressed at how little this movie had going for it.

I'm amazed at how he managed to do so much with so little. A true thespian. 

I suppose if I really try to strip away all the incessant bullshit that is this movie, and look, with justifiably critical eyes, at it, the plot follows the first Narnia flick. It takes about 25 minutes to get that story line started however, and before that we're treated to some pretty gnarly X-Men and Harry Potter shit. What the point of this is, never really becomes clear. It's there. We get to sit through it. It's not funny. It's a thing. So there's that. I kind of wish I could say more about it, but I just don't think I'll be able to without running out of expletives faster than I could form coherent sentences. It's just one attempt at being funny after another, and every single one fails miserably. No really, bear with me here. Not only do they fail miserably at making me laugh. They have the polar opposite effect, in fact. I'm enraged with each preposterously lame pun and every contemptible try at physical comedy. Fists clenched, foaming at the mouth, I heroically stayed with the program. The show must go on and all that shit.

Crispin you magnificent bastard. Please go back for another hilarious time on Letterman. 

The actual Narnia story line isn't really that much better, but at least it moves the story along some kind of seemingly linear path toward that glorious moment when the end credits will put me out of my misery. One of the 2 women stumble through the wardrobe (after some more ultra lame gags) and meets up with Mr. Tumnus. If you are even remotely familiar with the story of The Lion, the Wion and the Wardrobe, you'll still have no fucking idea what's going on here. The White Bitch, effortlessly played by a Bottom100 stable, Jennifer Coolidge, shows up, kidnaps one of the kids, and then Captain Jack Swallows turns up. Aslo has sex with not one of the chicks, not both of the chicks but both of the chicks AND the remaining dude in the quartet. Shit ping pongs back and forth between jokes that made me dry heave and puns that made me attempt to suffocate myself with a pillow, until we're finally at the end battle, where the Evil Bitch is kind of defeated, and the four idiots can return to the 'real world' whatever the bleeding hell that means. Astonishingly end credits lasted a whopping 14 minutes for this shitty production. Hey, out of a runtime of 85 minutes crammed full of the worst imaginable dreg ever put on film, you won't hear me complaining about 14 minutes worth of credits. Best thing ever.

Fred motherfucking Willard, everybody. With a joke so inherently unfunny, not even Dane Cook would steal it. 

The two skidmarks primarily responsible for this travesty are Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who both wrote and directed. You may be wondering if these two gentlemen are first time offenders. I think you already know the answer to that question. They have quite a wrap sheet going already including, but not limited to, Meet the Spartans, all Scary Movies, Disaster Movie, Vampires Suck and The Starving Games. All lamer than the other. They started out with Spy Hard, which was kind of ridiculous, but at least it had the almost always hilarious Leslie Nielsen starring, and a decent theme song by Weird Al. Sure that also had moments where you'd be scoffing loudly, but at least it wasn't so sporadic in it's lampooning. After Spy Hard, the first Scary Movie, if memory serves, had moments of amusement lodged in between all the other balderdash you would love to fast forward through. Scary Movie only features characters by this duo and was, primarily, and again if memory serves, written by the Wayans brothers, who had quite a run in the spoof subculture. Friedberg and Seltzer, however, stood the test of time. Or not. However you want to see it. But they are still in the game now, some 16 years later, cranking out one pile of stinking horse manure after another. Apparently these movies are seen or bought or sufficiently low budget that there is a turnover on profits. I have to go to Hollywood some day, and interview somebody about this. Perhaps one day when you lot have clicked my ads enough, I can. (Note to self: put ads on your blog).

I don't even really know what the fuck to say to this. It's... there. You deal with it. 

In this flick we see a veritable plethora of c-listers. Jennifer Coolidge, as mentioned before, is a veteran in dubiously produced flicks. When your main claim to fame is popularizing the term MILF in a cameo-style role in one of the most well known teen-comedies, you're bound to make your way to the seedy under belly of film making. But she is joined by several others here. Surprisingly no Paris Hilton. I guess two in a row was just too much. Or would it be 3? (a prediction for next week? You'll have to wait and see!). No Robert Costanzo either. On the other hand, Carmen Electra makes her standard appearance. I am going out on a limb here perhaps, but I'll stake the claim, that she is in 95% of the movies the writer/director duo have been involved in. She's in everything, and is always super generic. In this one she was Mystique. Makes sense. Also present was David Carradine, as seen in one of these screenshots, lampooning The DaVinci Code. This was, very obviously, before he played the autoerotic asphyxiation game in a closet in some cheap hotel in Bangkok. Let's face it here, he hadn't really done anything worth mentioned since the 70s until Quentin Tarantino, in true QT style, pulled him from the archives and gave him the title role in the Kill Bill flicks. Epic Movie does not do him any favors. Another well known face, albeit not in a B100 context, is Crispin Glover. Always an interesting character, he portrays Willy Wonka in a spoof of that bit. Crispin is sort of a wild card. He's in this just enough so that I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and say he didn't understand what was really going on. Yes, Back to the Future 1 gives him THAT much street cred. Even if he said no to the sequels. Last name I'm gonna mention, because really who gives a shit at this point, is Fred Willard as Aslo. As you may have already spotted, he looks beyond ridiculous here. No amount of street cred can play down that tortuous shit. That's bordering on unlawful. But that's Fred Willard for ya.

Quick Nacho Libre spoof, which is kind of meta, I guess, because the dude who plays Mr. Tumnus actually IS in Nacho Libre with Jack Black. Hilarious. 

I have one thing. Literally one positive thing to say about this movie, and it's not even really positive. Not about the movie anyway. In their X-Men subplot (if you feel bold enough to call it that) the dude playing Cyclops looked like the real thing enough for me to check the cast list to see, if James Marsden was somehow on enough drugs to think cameoing as 'himself' would be a good idea. Even now when snapping pictures to use on here (Not only do I have to watch it, I have to semi rewatch it so you douchebags can giggle at amusing pictures) I was like “Damn that is one seriously James Marsdenly looking dude!” Yes I totally was. So that's the only interesting/positive thing about Epic Movie. Everything else is shit. Shit covered shit with shit on top. Remember when I said I hated it? It's true. I still do. I hate that movies like this exist. Horror spider island shit from fucking 1960 I can forgive if not condone. It was a different time. They didn't know better. Besides, that was basically a softcore porn with the naughty bits cut out. Who can hate that (plot twist: I actually kind of can)? But why are movies like this, in the 21st century, greenlit at all? I just don't get it. Perhaps I'm an idiot. That theory has certainly been floated by quite a few people in the past. I don't think I am, but that's what an idiot would say I guess. Fact of the matter is, I don't get it. And that's all I have to say about that. And hopefully all I ever have to.

That's pretty bodacious.