Epic Movie 2007

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: The film never becomes anything of its own, however; it merely jumps from spoof to spoof, often with tenuous transitions. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The cinematic equivalent of a tapeworm, this delivers few laughs beyond the initial chuckles of recognition. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Epic Movie strays so far from the solid fundamentals of filmmaking that it calls the very foundation of humor into question. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: What you miss most is the shamelessness and wit that Anna Faris and Regina Hall have brought to four installments of Scary Movie. In lieu of those two, there are exploding pimples, a tongue frozen on a pole, and industrial-strength projectile. Read more

Alex Chun, Los Angeles Times: The real problem with Epic Movie is that while it does a decent job imitating films, it never bothers to make fun of or have fun with them. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Despite all the scatological high jinks on display, most of the satire is affectionate rather than merciless. Read more

Jim Ridley, L.A. Weekly: An amateur-hour game of Spot That Reference, intended for people who crack up simply at the mention of anything topical. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: How can you make fun of such self-aware subjects as Borat or Johnny Depp's winkingly fey Jack Sparrow? Who hasn't already noticed Tom Hanks' bad Da Vinci Code hair? And really, is there anything left to say about Samuel L. Jackson and those snakes? Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The makers of Epic Movie have just discovered the existence of urine, vomit and pimples, and declared them hilarious. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Thankfully, the crude, scatological parody Epic Movie, unlike the movies it sends up, is short. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Pity [the producers] couldn't find anything funny to do once they'd built the sets, and found dead ringers for Anna Paquin, Paris Hilton, P. Diddy and Jack Black. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Bad taste and worse jokes abound. Epic Movie's humor isn't tired; it's comatose. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Satire points up and emphasizes truths that have gone unnoticed, punctures pretension and tweaks the self-important. Audiences laugh at the unexpected revelation of truth. Epic Movie does none of that. Read more

Jason Anderson, Globe and Mail: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer must be stopped. For the last 10 years, this filmmaking team has created a series of spoof movies so feeble, shoddy and unfunny that they may be part of a diabolical, Manchurian Candidate-like plot. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: You know a movie parody is in trouble when you can't quite figure out the frame of reference for the parody. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: The gutter-brow auteurs who helped write the first Scary Movie and created Date Movie milk their lame sketch-comedy minds for yet another punishingly uninspired skewering of Hollywood hits. Read more

Ronnie Scheib, Variety: Extravagantly [expends] elaborate sets, special-effects, music, costumes and actor look-alikes for the sake of a few lame gags and a legion of crotch-kicks. Read more