Scary Movie 3

Release Date: October 24, 2003
Studio: Dimension Films
Director: David Zucker
Screenwriter: Pat Proft, Craig Mazin
Starring: Anna Faris, Anthony Anderson, Leslie Nielsen, Camryn Manheim, Simon Rex, George Carlin, Queen Latifah, Eddie Griffin, Denise Richards, Regina Hall, Charlie Sheen, Pamela Anderson, Jenny McCarthy, Marny Eng, Jianna Ballard, Jeremy Piven, Elaine Klimaszewski, Diane Klimaszewski, Drew Mikuska, Darrell Hammond, Dexter Bell, Kevin Hart, Dame Lee, Doron Bell, Simon Cowell, Fat Joe, Ajay Naidu, William B. Taylor, Patricia Idlette, David Edwards, Frank C. Turner, Monica Dillon, Lori Stewart, Jim Brenner, Phil Dornfield, Edward Moss, Deejay Jackson, Ja Rule, D.L. Hughey, Troy Yorke, Marco Soriano, Cliff Solomon, Byron Chief-Moon, Dolly Madsen, John Hainsworth, Beverley Breuer, Jessie Young, Deanne Henry, Eric Breker, Master P, Macy Gray, Redman, Method Man, Raekwon, RZA, U-God, Naomi Lawson-Baird, Abigail Adams
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for pervasive crude and sexual humor, language, comic violence and drug references)
Official Website: ScaryMovie.com
Review: 8.5/10 rating

Plot Summary: Now out of college, the hapless Cindy Campbell is a TV news anchorwoman. Strange things begin to occur when crop circles appear on Tom Logan's farm, but the suspense climaxes when Cindy's best friend Brenda dies an eerie death somehow relating to a killer video tape. After her nephew Cody watches the video tape, Cindy fears the lives of all and takes matters into her own hands, summoning the help of the Oracle and visiting the infatuated Architect on Curlesco Island. From this point on, Cindy uncovers the eerie link between the crop circles and the killer video tape, and must eventually assist the President of the United States in preventing a full-scale alien invasion.

Reviewed by Peter Veugelaers © 2004
- Electrified turkey

Scary Movie 3 is an unforgivable addition to the comedy spoof genre, which has provided David Zucker, the film’s director, a lucrative career. He made memorable spoofs during the 80s like Airplane and Naked Gun. Scary Movie 3 proves spoof comedy is an ailing art, and if this is the standard it had better die an unnatural death. What’s disturbing is that there is a Scary Movie 4 coming to theatres this year.

Taking plot elements from horror-thriller The Ring, and the supernatural Signs, it interconnects them to tell a patchy story – hardly the right word - about an alien attack on America. That’s nothing new in American cinema, and although this obsession with outer space invaders deserves to be ridiculed in film it’s just not funny here.

There is a sense this wants to go deeper as a satire, and that it fails abysmally. Catholic priests and Michael Jackson are obvious targets these days, which Scary Movie 3 aims their less than probing and biting gaze at.

Charlie Sheen reprises Mel Gibson’s Tom Logan from Signs. Of course they make fun of the crop circles in that film and the flashbacks about Tom’s reason for losing his faith.

Sheen doesn’t strike here; although there are hints of the magic he brought to Hot Shots in the early 90s when he got more of a chance to showcase his laid-back deadpan comedy. That’s when spoofs tended to be funny. I think with the surge of Farrelly Brothers comedies and Adam Sandler one-man shows the genre has worn thin and grown feeble.

Sheen has a son George (an unfunny and unenthusiastic Simon Rex) who has a dream to be a rapper and so moves from the country to the gritty urban dwellings to do what Jimmy Rabbit (Eminem) did in 8 Mile. The intensity of the rapping competitions in that film is parodied, although it is just plain silly and better left to 8 Mile. At least by the end of the scene they had the good sense to throw the wannabe rapper out of the window.

Sheen’s son and reporter Cindy (Anna Faris) get embroiled in the unfortunate retelling of The Ring plot line. Her friend died having watched the ominous cryptic video that will lead to the viewer’s death seven days after viewing. The reporter, who is a solo mother, is next on the list.

Leslie Nielsen as the U.S.A President is an inspired and amusing choice, but it backfires. He did much better in Naked Gun and Airplane, when he was given better lines and skits. The sure-fire Nielsen gags don’t happen, and it may signal the end of Nielsen as the master of comedy spoof, although the rehashing of him in these films probably indicated his demise much earlier.

This is low brow and unimaginative, a series of misfire skits, which attempts a huge amount of ineffective physical ‘humour’. When there are moments the makers want to point out something a little more edgy than this franchise’s mainstay of gutter level spoof they seem to be so noble in what is a crass cinematic experience. A more intelligent film could exploit controversial subject matter better, but here and in some other spoofs they tend to go for below the belt denominators and this means saying things audiences will regret.