Disaster Movie (2008)

It’s an interesting point of fact that the movie spoof called Disaster Movie, actually satirizes very few disaster movies. It’s also an interesting fact that Disaster Movie now ranks at number one on the IMDB’s list of the Bottom 100 films of all-time. Could the two be connected? Maybe, because if you can’t even deliver on the most basic of promises implied in the title, you’re clearly unable to grasp the simplicities of your medium. Not that filmmakers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have ever been lauded as prime examples of the deep end of Hollywood’s talent pool, but honestly, has there been a deficit of disaster movies the last few years.

The answer, of course, is yeah, actually. Other than Cloverfield, I had to look back to 2005 to find something closely resembling a disaster movie, War of the Worlds. So maybe this was misguided. No, wait, this really was misguided. I realize that Friedberg and Seltzer have to maintain a certain momentum, because if they stop making films the people that fund might start to realize that they’re enabling two of the most bumbling filmmakers in the history of movies. There is no self-awareness at all; no sign that either of these two doofuses seem to have any idea on how to even execute a successful knock-knock joke let alone a comedic narrative. They’re pure Baltic Avenue: cheap, efficient and horribly unfunny.

Once upon a time, there was this movie call Airplane, which slyly and subtly sent up a number of airport-based emergency pictures developed in the 1970s. Made in 1980, it’s known for a lot of great one-liners and some seminal comedic performances. But if there’s one thing it’s not remembered for is an inexplicable cameo appearance by someone made-up to look like Harrison Ford’s Han Solo or Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz. In other words: everything was in its right place. Even though it was a spoof, a send-up, it had its own internal logic from which the insanity flowed.

Disaster Movie takes shots at Iron Man, Juno, High School Musical, Cloverfield, Incredible Hulk, Hellboy, 10,000 BC, Night at the Museum, Enchanted, Superbad and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Many of these films, of course, weren’t even released yet while Friedberg and Seltzer were making the film and only one them has anything even remotely to do with a disaster movie. And while I can appreciate a certain creative guile in stringing all these desperate things together, I can’t deny that this is sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Not to mention lazy, lazy, lazy. Instead of actually trying to plumb for something imaginative and maybe a little fresh, they just went to Apple Trailers with pen and pad in hand.

At least in past films like Meet the Spartans and Epic Movie, there was some degree of star-power to turn on, even if it was just Method Man and Kevin Sorbo. Carmen Electra once again contributes, taking time out her… whatever she does schedule, to fill in for Angelina Jolie’s Wanted role. This, I have to admit makes sense, it always struck me that Electra was the low-rent, D-list version of Jolie. This just confirmed it. But honestly, somewhere amongst the cast of no names and Mad TV rejects there were one or two standouts. Nicole Parker as Enchanted’s princess coolly explaining her lack of emotion while killing Speed Racer was one; Christa Flanagan’s spot on impression of Ellen Page’s Juno is another. Of course, when Friedberg and Seltzer make fun of Juno’s overwritten dialogue it seems more a matter of professional jealousy than anything.

But a couple of interesting mimicries can’t make up for the vast majority of the film where you’re fidgeting in your chair waiting for inspiration to hit on screen. I kid you not, there was an entire sequence where one superhero after the other comes out to fight a twister: Iron Man, Hellboy and the Hulk. As if to say, “Look, we know what movies came out this summer,” the filmmakers demonstrated that they have all the flair and observation of a three year old that just learned the name of something new. Consider this an indication of the IQ level necessary to get any enjoyment out of this thing.