Meet the Hacks

Posted 16:28 (GMT) 25th July 2008

Speaking of unoriginality and hack comedy let's talk about Disaster Movie. You can watch the trailer here and if you follow that link you will be able to catch a glimpse of the poster, too. From the trailer alone I caught references to...

1. Iron Man

2. The Incredible Hulk

3. Enchanted

4. Hancock

5. Sex and The City and

6. Juno.

Somewhat tellingly, none of those films are disaster movies. And even more tellingly, the last four are comedies. How can you satirise a comedy? I mean, comedy by definition presents a situation and then finds funny things to say about that situation. Poking fun at something which is essentially already poking fun at itself is not impossible but very hard. I'm not saying Sex and the City isn't ripe for parody (because it definitely is) but Enchanted? Enchanted is a parody of a Disney movie. Hancock is a parody of a superhero movie. How do you parody something that already parodies itself?

Well, they don't. In the trailer, Iron Man is hit by a falling cow, the Incredible Hulk's jeans tear off, Giselle from Enchanted is hit by a car, Hancock flies into a lamp post and Carrie is beaten up by Juno. Noticing a pattern here?

Step 1. Dress someone up as a character from a genuinely entertaining film.

Step 2. Hit that character with a bad prop.

Step 3. Return to Step 1.

A cow does not satire make. What flaw in Iron Man are they pointing out here? Iron Man's weakness to cows? The thing that doesn't exist? There's nothing funny about that, nothing satirical, nothing which elevates this gag above a seven-year-old child pointing at Iron Man and saying "Ha ha Iron Man is dumb!" (which no seven-year-old would do because Iron Man is awesome). They don't even say why Iron Man is dumb, they just hit him with a cow and we are supposed to be in stitches. The stupidest part is, the Iron Man film does quite a bit to play with the expectations of a super-hero film, creating a number of genuinely funny moments.

But let's face it, Iron Man is a rich alcoholic in bright yellow and red metal suit. There is room for parody there, if one was so inclined. But these jackasses don't even try. Or they don't know how to try.

Who are these jackasses? The same guys who made Date Movie, Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans (more on that title in a second) and, presumably, the unfunny parts from Scary Movie. Who are they? Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. I am utterly opposed to violence and murder in every way but if any two people did deserve to die these two would.

They're not just idiots, they are thieves. That bit at the end with Juno kicking Carrie in the face? Stolen right out of Don't Mess With the Zohan. Almost verbatim. If your shtick is 'every character from every film released this year plus jokes' they have to at least be your own jokes. Otherwise it's not just unimaginative it's immoral. And I'm not exaggerating to make a point, I'm serious - stealing other people's ideas and passing them off as your own is just evil. And really, Zohan? It wasn't funny when they did it in the first place.

It gets better, by which I mean it gets worse. If you look at the poster you'll see crude facsimiles of Kung Fu Panda, The Dark Knight and Hellboy II - films which have only just come out. There is no way these guys could have seen those films in time to make this one, unless they have a time machine. Which means they can only have watched the trailers.

Think about that for a second.

They are 'making fun' of films they haven't even seen. How can they get away with this? If I was to write a review of Final Fantasy XIII in which I said it was bad that would be libel. How can Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer point at Batman and say "this came out this year, it is dumb" before they've even seen the film?

Satire is a powerful weapon which should only be levelled at deserving targets. In order to find out if a film is deserving of parody you have to watch it first. I, however, do not have to watch Disaster Movie to condemn it - the poster and the trailer commit enough sins already. And not just jokey film critic sins of bad writing or unimaginative plotting but actual real sins like stealing and lying.

I've had enough. I for one will not stand for this kind of bull shit anymore. The human race needs to take action. These parasites have attached themselves to the film industry in order to churn out lifeless, brain-dead copies of every main character from every film released since their last cinematic abortion. The only way to stop them is for film-makers to stop making films. Seriously, just wait for a couple of years and Friedberg and Seltzer will have to come up with their own ideas. They will wither and die without a host. We'll find them both in a ditch somewhere, all grey and shrivelled like E.T. Sure, we'll have to go without films for a while but won't it be worth it to see these hacks perish?

Maybe not. Okay, plan B. We go round to their houses armed with clubs with nails in them and beat them to death.

Seriously, how would you feel if you spent years of your life creating a genuinely heart-warming and funny film that is simultaneously a parody of Kung Fu movies and an awesome Kung Fu movie in its own right? What if the protagonist was a flawed but loveable Panda voiced by Jack Black, a character that teaches children that it doesn't matter what they look like, they can still do anything they put their mind to? And what if two douchebags came along, watched the trailer, picked up on the fact that there was a panda but nothing else and shoe-horned your character into their low rent r-tard movie which just so happens to be exactly the same as the one they made last year, right down to the '[INSERT GENRE] MOVIE' title, the poster showing that title in chunky red capitals with all the cast gathered around it and the same demeaning Carmen Electra cameo? How would you feel? You'd be heart-broken. You would be well within your rights to go round to those douchebags' houses and beat them to death with spiky clubs. Let's do this!

P. S. I have a theory that every film with 'Meet the-' in the title is automatically bad. Look at the evidence: Meet the Fockers, Meet the Robinsons, Meet the Spartans. All badly-written films with badly-written titles to match. How can a title be badly written you ask? Simple. At its most basic level, a title answers the question of 'What is this film/book/comic strip/TV show about'.

What is this show about? It's about How I Met Your Mother.

What is this book about? It's about Great Expectations.

What is this film about? It's about Spider-man.

What is Meet the Robinsons about? It's about the fucking Robinsons. The 'meet the-' part is utterly redundant. Just call it The Robinsons. I think it's safe to say that when I watch Patch Adams I'm going to meet Patch Adams. You don't need to tell me I'm going to meet the people your film is about. 'Meet the-' just adds a nauseatingly self-satisfied sheen to the whole thing. 'Meet' is the first word of, like, 70% of all trailers. "Meet Frank. He's a cop with a lot of time on his hands. But what Frank doesn't know is he's got a time machine buried in the back of his head etc. etc." Imagine the annoying trailer voice-over man saying that. Not the good one, the smug-sounding one. The one who does the voice-over for Rob Schneider films. That's what I hear every time I see a film with 'Meet the-' in the title. Let's just say I don't have high hopes for Meet Dave.

P.P.S. Yeah, I know I described Carmen Electra's cameos as demeaning. Carmen Electra, a woman who became famous via Playboy and Baywatch, doing something which is beneath her. I stand by it, those films are dog shit.

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