The Real Epic Journey: Sitting Through this Entire Movie
It's epic alright. Hell, it's a milestone in the history of filmmaking as far as I'm concerned, like no movie ever made. That's because there's never been a less entertaining, less intelligent, or more annoying cinematic experience than "Epic Movie," and even though I've said this about countless films before, I've never been more confident in the following assessment: this is the worst movie ever made. Period.
With that in mind, I am not only advising you not to see this movie, I'm begging. If you've so much as considered even entertaining the notion of seeing this movie, do me a personal favor and perish that thought. If you catch a preview for it, change the channel. If everything else is sold out, go home. and please, if someone you know has expressed even the slightest interest in going to see it, it is your duty to look them in the eye with a sense of disgust and say, "You must be joking, right?" Friends don't let friends watch "Epic Movie."
The problem is actually larger than "Epic Movie" itself, however, as disturbing as that may seem, because this movie is actually the second installment now of what threatens to be a horrendous series of unbearable spoof films made by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. The two worst of the six writers of "Scary Movie," Friedberg and Seltzer somehow convinced the right people that they were talented enough to recreate the wit of "Scary Movie" in spoof films of their own, and got their first shot last year. What a terrible mistake that was. As I see it, their credibility was heavily damaged with "Date Movie," and is now removed entirely with "Epic Movie." If people keep going to see these stupid, stupid films, however, who knows how far this will go, so everyone needs to do their part.
The ridiculous story is so complicated I'm choking on my own rage here trying to recall the details. Basically, there are four young adults spread out across the world, each of whom are themselves orphans, and each of whom happen to end up obtaining from a candy bar wrapper a "golden ticket" that grants them access to an epic adventure, thus the "Willy Wonka" scenes you may have seen in the previews.
One of those four is my new most hated actor, Kal Penn, the excruciating star of "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" and several other disappointing comedies who I realized when the movie ended had made me laugh just as many times as he had before it started. Coming in at a close second is Adam Campbell, the annoying actor you see dressed as Superman in the previews, who also stunk up the theatre in "Date Movie." He plays a student in the X-Men's school for mutants whose super power is akin to Archangel, however instead of sprouting angel wings from his back when he transforms he grows chicken wings. This is just one of many jokes and scenarios this movie employs that sound funny in theory or that may even have the potential to be funny, but just aren't.
Rounding out the fab four are Jayma Mays and Faune A. Chambers, two virtually unknown actresses whose careers deserve to be ruined for participating in this atrocity. Here's a good example of what you‘re getting yourself into: for some reason, there is a running joke throughout the entire movie that anything Chamber's character says, Mays' character repeats. This literally happens over and over and over again to the point where you can't help but look at the person beside you and ask, "Are you serious?"
After claiming their prize at Willy's chocolate factory, the four stumble across a magical closet that transports them to the fantasy world of Gnarnia, a land deviously ruled by the evil White Bitch. It is up to the four to figure out how to defeat the White Bitch, but friends they meet along the way advise them that it is their destiny to indeed do so. Among those spoofed friends are Harry Potter, Captain Jack Swallows, a talking beaver and a half man, half goat character, with the most memorable of course being - ah, who cares? It was about this time I realized how useful a torture device this movie would be if played over and over again for potential terrorists and started counting how many medical procedures I'd rather have performed on me than to finish watching this movie. Never has a film this short seemed so long.
If you do still decide to see "Epic Movie" anyway, you might want to go ahead and schedule a full body hair removal appointment while you're are it. That sounds like just as much fun. Maybe sneak a laser pointer in the theatre with you so you can burn your retinas out too. Really let the good times roll, you know?
Whatever you do, just don't say I didn't warn you.
