Spirk Suggests: Epic Movie
As stated in the trailer…”From two of the six guys who wrote Scary Movie.” Epic movie is scripted by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer who bring their ‘A’ game to a script that is filled with tongue in cheek humor mixed with Slapstick and over the top gags.
The main setting for the film is the Chornicles of Narnia but the duo takes shots at The Davinci Code, Snakes on a Plane, Nacho Libre, X-Men and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Much like Scary Movie Friedberg and Selzter take the basic plot points of the films and twists them into some gems of comic genius.
Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle), Adam Campbell (Date Movie), Faune A. Chambers (White Chicks) and Jayma Mays (TV spots on Heroes, House MD and Studio 60) play the four youngsters who end up in Gnarnia (changed to prevent the lawsuits says Mr Tumnus.) To get there we see Lucy (Jayma Mays) bumble her way through the Divinci Code, Edward (Kal Penn)suffer through his life in the Mexican orphanage where he dreams of being a Luchadore, Susan encounter Snakes on a Plane with a pretty damn good Samuel Jackson impersonator and Peter being miserable at Mutant High.
One thing connects them together. They all get the ‘Golden Ticket’ to visit Willy and his chocolate factory. Willy is downright creepy and played to perfection by Crispin Glover (Willard, Charlie’s Angels 2) and happens to have a wardrobe in one of his rooms that leads to the fabled Gnarnia. Just like in the actual Chronicles Lucy is the first through the cabinet where she meets Mr Tumnus who is a fawn, half man and half goat. From Tumnus we learn that the world is ruled by ‘The White Bitch’ played by Jennifer Coolidge (Stiffler’s Mom). There is hope for Gnarnia however, Aslo the lion (Veteran Actor Fred Willard) a sex starved lion can help the four young people save the fabled land from eternal Darkness.
The majority of the movie takes place in Gnarnia but there are some classic guest spots from the likes of Darrell Hammond (Saturday Night Live) With an amazing likeness of Captain Jack Sparrow, Kevin McDonald (Also of SNL) as the grown up Harry Potter who is still a student at Hogwarts, Carmen Electra, as Mystique and of course David Carradine (Kung Fu, Kill Bill) as the museum Cureator.
This movie is not to be taken seriously. If you go in looking for a thought provoking movie that happens to be funny then you are in the wrong theater. Epic Movie is a spoof movie in the tradition of Airplane and Scary Movie. It won’t win any awards and it won’t gross 100 million but one thing it will do is make you laugh.
Richard Carroll is an avid movie viewer and all around fanboy. You can probably find him at his computer playing Guild Wars when not watching,writing, reading or roleplaying something (Oh and then there’s the real world and work). Check out some of his written works at www.ficofthedead.com. A website in need of a webmaster to ensure it gets updated. (Any takers? Anyone? *grins*)