Imagine a film where someone managed to cobble together various famous, A-grade actors and actresses into an ensemble film for our entertainment… then chuck them into a dire, toilet humour comedy. Well imagine no more as Movie 43 is here!
Two stoners get stitched up by one of them’s younger, more intelligent brother and they plot their revenge by making him go on a pointless quest to find the mythical film Movie 43. Despite the two joking around, it turns out it could be real but numerous searches for it over the internet comes up with various, weird, extreme video clips. The quest to find Movie 43 is not without it’s detractors which may bring about… THE END OF THE WORLD!
First of all and most disappointing, we will be left most of the 90 minute runtime with the overarcing plot from above and it’s complete rubbish. Painfully unfunny except for one or two decent technical jokes (Well I laughed anyway), you’re left bored with the stupid and patronising action unfolding. You’re not really made to care about the characters involved despite the actors being on the level “oh it’s whathisface from that film I once saw!” which is fun enough, but won’t keep your attention for 30+ minutes.
But you’re not here for the plot! No sir! This is an exceptional cast put together for the various video clips, even for a comedy film. Seriously, where else are you going to have Hugh Jackman, Naomi Watts, Halle Berry, Gerard Butler, Kate Winslet and Richard Gere amongst others in the same film? Granted they’re not all together in the same scene which would have been logistically impossible but some of the match up are tailor made to suit the various groupings of actors.
The various sketches themselves however are really hit and miss and your personal mileage may vary from the actual humour. There’s a lot of extreme jokes which lean on crudeness a tad too much but you need something like that to separate Movie 43 from any other comedy or ensemble film. I mean, what would have been the point to gather such a cast together anyway to do something relatively safe? The trouble is, that kind of humour is too easy and apart from shock value, it doesn’t linger about in the mind.
There is a lot of pap to sit through to get to the golden moments also. Scenes like the female body iPod ‘iBabe’ parody take forever to get to the punchline which is fairly obvious, not really funny and peters out without a real finish, although the digs at Apple are nicely sly. The home schooled boy with his parents is brilliantly built up to a crescendo and is quite good but the pay off is so flat, it comes across as a fart in the middle of a funeral. I won’t get too worked up over the Winslet/Jackman dinner date despite it’s overlong straining for an average visual joke since it’s dropped as the first sketch so it’s chucked out of the way but the final scene with the cartoon cat and Elizabeth Banks was just too far to the point of it coming across as a scene made for the cutting room floor with it’s position as post-credits.
I must say the actual good parts make up the quality somewhat. Undoubtedly the film stealing scene is the dinner date between Berry and Stephen Merchant which descends into an escalating game of truth or dare with permanent consequences. Johnny Knoxville and Sean William-Scott (a natural double team if ever there was one) kidnapping a CGI leprechaun Butler for his pot of gold has a worthwhile pay off to the running joke throughout their bit. The Batman and friends superhero speed dating clip has some of the best alternative views on our favourites like Superman when no one is looking, even if most of the humour is straight out of a toilet. The Kick-Ass duo of Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Chloe Grace Moretz reunite to have a stab at boys and men’s reaction to a girls’ first period, with a slapstick performance from Mintz-Plasse showing why he’s a superb young comedy actor.
Whatever your view on the actual comedy, you have to admire the sheer effort to get this film made. According to co-director Peter Farralley (Dumb And Dumber), Movie 43 took four years to complete. Granted that’s mainly cases of filming one segment in a week then not doing anything for a few months until the rest bunch of various cast and crew become available but still they managed to get this done, eventually, and consider who the various producers and Farralley managed to rope in, there must be a level of credit laid at their feet.
I am perhaps looking at this with some generosity since there is far, far more bad than good. We do have some brilliant scenes but they get washed away by thoughts of “did I really just see that?” and not in a good way either. But with what it does, does this film fail. No. For what Movie 43 sets out to do, put a bunch of famous actors and actresses in various mad situations, it exceeds. It’s just not funny enough.
Terry Lewis – @thatterrylewis.
