Review: Date Movie


Overweight Alyson Hannigan is getting awful lonely, her dad Eddie Griffin (!) keeps setting her up with losers, but eventually Hannigan turns to relationship expert Hitch (diminutive comedic actor Tony Cox, in an initially amusing pisstake of Will Smith) to help turn her into a fox to win over the Hugh Grant-ish Grant Fockyerdoder (Adam Campbell). After a supremely unfunny (and inexplicable) “Bachelor” spoof, the two fall in love and plan to marry. Enter Grant’s super-fine ex, played by Australia’s own Sophie Monk to come between our happy couple.



Not even the talents of Hannigan (who is a genuine talent, quirky and adorable), Griffin, Fred Willard, and Jennifer Coolidge can save this stale, mostly unfunny 2006 Aaron Seltzer spoof which seems somewhat aimless. I guess it’s a spoof of chick flicks but do “Meet the Fockers” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding” really belong in the same category? Most of the films parodied are about ten times as funny as anything here. Perhaps the chick flick genre does not prove an appropriate basis for a rapid-fire spoof movie. Or perhaps these guys (Seltzer and co-writer Jason Friedberg) just plain suck at joke writing. The only laughs come from a cat, in a rather cute (if smelly) parody of “Meet the Parents”, and from a brief cameo by “SNL” comedian Seth Meyers as the Owen Wilson character in the aforementioned film (his “Napoleon Dynamite” parody isn’t much to write home about, though). Screenplay by Seltzer and Friedberg is pretty desperate, though Willard and Coolidge try their best to make it work. Taking the Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand roles in “Meet the Fockers”, they are given nothing funny to say or do, but due solely to their talent, nearly manage to pull their roles off anyway. Otherwise, this one’s pretty weak.



Rating: C-

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