“Scary Movie 3” (Dimension Films)
Everything that went right in the first two “Scary Movies” goes wrong in the third installment. Maybe that is because the Wayans Brothers dropped out as the writers/directors, or maybe the writers just ran out of good material. In any event “Scary Movie 3” ranks as one of the unfunniest spoof films in history.
David Zucker of “Airplane” fame takes over as director and you would think he knew what he was doing. But all that sly humor and laugh out loud pratfalls he is famed for, just don’t occur in this movie. There are one or two sniggering moments and that is all.
Another weakness is that all of the really close to funny bits were shown in the trailer. When you go to see the movie you want to see something you haven’t seen before but you don’t. You have already seen Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy playing dumber than dumb sex kittens. You have already seen Charlie Sheen, as Mel Gibson in “Signs,” get the word from Camryn Manheim that due to an accident his wife was in two parts. You have already seen “Michael Jackson” do a wild bit.
What is left is a lot of humor at the expense of children. You see a little boy get run down by a vehicle over and over again. Sure it is done in a cartoonish way, but it is still a child getting hurt.
Regina Hall returns and her bit as a woman playing practical jokes on her friend, Anna Ferris, does entertain. The same can be said for Jeremy Piven’s role as an announcer who reads the wrong information on his cue cards. This is almost as good as the scene in “Bruce Almighty” but not quite.
The movie is rated PG-13 for profanity, crudity and violence.
If you haven’t seen “Signs,” “8 Mile,” “The Ring” and even “The Matrix Revolution” you won’t get the jokes in this movie. The spoofs on these films, especially “Signs,” seem to go on forever and ever. The same is true for the “8 Mile” take off in which Simon Rex plays the Eminem character. Not funny!
Maybe the humor mill for this franchise is over. It sure seems that way. Unless they can come up with something really fresh and innovative, let’s just let “Scary Movie 4” be an idea whose time never came.
I scored “Scary Movie 3” a you called it 3 out of 10.
