Search Movie Review Archives

Making fun of the movies you've grown to love (or despise) has become a cottage industry in Hollywood. Since "Airplane" first parodied the Airport movies and other disaster films, David Zucker has created a derivative but funny body of work that reminds us of all the clichés Hollywood has stooped to as part of its mission to keep us entertained. Zucker takes on the "Scary Movie" franchise developed by the Wayans brothers. It seems like a natural progression since Zucker helped create this genre of parody films that occasionally rear their ugly (and quite funny) heads. ***

"Scary Movie 3" pokes fun at "The Ring", "The Sixth Sense", "Signs" and the excess of "The Matrix" and, of all things, "8 Miles". Anna Faris (one of two hold overs from the previous films)stars as an anchorwoman investigating a videotape that kills people and bizarre crop circles that appear without any apparent cause. In the process she also falls in love with a white rapper whose only contact with soul is the one on the bottom of his shoe. It's all tied together by a plot similar to all these movies depending on which plot strand you're following at any particular moment. Zucker keeps the sight gags and punny humor coming nonstop which is the only thing to do with these types of films. Some stick and some don't but you're guaranteed a belly laugh or two while watching the movie. ---

"Scary Movie" looks, well, like the very scary movies it makes fun of-quite good on DVD. Colors are accurate and true. In fact you'll wonder if you're watching the movies they're making fun of until you see the actors in this movie come into the scene. Zucker and his cinematographer have done a great job of recreating everyone's favorite scenes from these films and the transfer accurately reflects the films being made fun of here. ***

The nicely detailed soundtrack plays well across both the 5.1 Surround Sound speakers and even sounds pretty good in more traditional 2.0 Surround as well. All the rattling sound effects and creepy music that we've come to expect from "The Ring" and others crop up here as well. They sound pretty darn convincing until the musical and visual punchline hits home. ---

We get to see extended, deleted and alternate scenes. The most inspired of these is the alternate ending involving "The Hulk vs. Aliens". Here the Hulk isn't CGI but a guy in a suit and, surprisingly, it works just as well as the CGI Hulk. There's three featurettes on the film including "The Making of The Alternate Ending", "The Making of Scary Movie 3" which is the more traditional featurette of the three and "The Making of Scary Movie 3- For Real" which allows the actors, cast and crew to cut up about the making of the film. ***

The outtakes and bloopers aren't quite as funny as what ended up in the final film but there is a chuckle or two here as well. The outtakes with Leslie Nielsen where he quotes his famous line from "Airplane" ("Good luck, we're all counting on you") and some of the material where they parody "The Ring" come across as particularly funny. ---