Reviewed by Stuart O'Connor
Stars Matt Lanter, Vanessa Minillo, Nicole Parker,
Kim Kardashian, Gary Johnson, Crista Flanagan,
Ike Barinholtz, Carmen Electra, Tony Cox
Written by Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer
Certification UK PG | US PG-13
Runtime 89 minutes (incl 19 minutes of credits)
Directed by Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer
Short review: oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear ...
Long review: here we go again. Another pile of lazy, cynical, desperately unfunny shit from the utterly talentless Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Yes, the same utterly talentless pair behind Date Movie, Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans. Did you see what we thought of Meet the Spartans? Go on, have a read. I'll wait right here … … … … … See? What did I tell you? Yes, I know we gave Meet the Spartans zero stars, while giving Disaster Movie one star. There are two reasons for that. One is that this film actually has one joke, while Spartans had none. So there's half a star there. And the other half a star is for Kim Kardashian, who is the only person in the entire cast who appears to possibly have even the merest skerrick of a shred of acting talent. And she's pretty. And yes, she has big breasts (which is really what she gets the half-star for).
So, the film itself. Where do I start? How about at the beginnig, with a 10,000BC parody (clever called 10,001BC!) in which a caveman fights an American Gladiator. Then encounters a sabre-toothed Amy Winehouse. And how do we know it's Amy Winehouse? Because they tell us. "Oh look, it's Amy Winehouse," caveman says. And yes, every character that's parodied is introduced exactly the same way — with a namecheck. "Oh look, it's Hannah Montana." "Oh look, it's Jessica Simpson." "Oh look, it's Prince Caspian." "Oh look, it's Dr Phil." "Oh look, it's Batman." "Oh look, it's Hellboy." Yes, the impersonations are so bad they have to name the celebrity/character just to make sure the audience gets the joke. The "plot" (and I use the word advisedly) is basically a riff on Cloverfield. But without the monster. It takes place pretty much on one street, with lots of bad CGI meteors falling about the place, plus the odd bad CGI tornado thrown in for good measure. As well as Cloverfield, we get unfunny riffs on the films Juno, Enchanted, No Country For Old men, Iron Man, Speed Racer, Superbad, Beowulf, Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull (with a midget Indy!), The Incredible Hulk, Wanted, High School Musical, Alvin & The Chipmunks (played by badly-made puppets!), Hancock, Sex & The City and Night at The Museum. There's a fight between some bloke and Kung Fu Panda. Played by a guy in a panda suit that's so crap they must have hired it from the corner costume shop. The Batman and Iron Man costumes are not much better. When they run short of tired, unfunny "jokes" the filmmakers then fill five minutes of screentime with a pointless fight scene. I mean, who would have thought that ANYONE could make a fight between Carmen Electra and Kim Kardashian — both wearing almost nothing — boring? Yep, these guys succeed.
I could go on, and on, and on. But I think you get the point. This is the sort of mindless, humourless dross that will only appeal to 13-year-olds who don't understand good comedy. Like my nephew. All I can do is repeat the plea I made at the end of our Meet the Spartans review, because obviously nobody took any notice: "And Hollywood studio suits, if you're reading — please don't give these two braindead fuckwits any more money to make this sort of shit again, OK? The world is in a bad enough state as it is." And did you notice that I managed to go through this whole review without saying that this pile of lazy, cynical, desperately unfunny shit truly lives up to its title, and is a complete and utter disaster? Oh bugger ...