Date Movie (2006) starring Alyson Hannigan, Adam Campbell, Sophie Monk, Eddie Griffin, Meera Simhan, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, Carmen Electra directed by Aaron Seltzer Movie Review

Date Movie (2006)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Tony Cox and Alyson Hannigan in Date Movie

Miss Hannigan's Horror Date

Sublime, brilliant, hilarious and clever are none of the words which come to mind when thinking of ways to describe "Date Movie" a movie which tries to have fun spoofing the romantic comedy genre. I say tries because quite frankly whilst it delivers its own take on various famous scenes from well known romantic comedies it's not actually funny. In fact it is so tacky I question why the delightful and usually funny Alyson Hannigan even agreed to appear in it let alone play the central character of Julia Jones.

Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan - American Pie The Wedding) is a walking cliche, she is overweight, works for her dad in his diner, believes she will never find a man and as such is seriously unhappy. But that all changes when she meets Grant Funkyerdoder (Adam Campbell) and they fall head over heels in love. But before they can get married they have to run the gauntlet of meeting each others parents.

Alyson Hannigan as Julia Jones in Date Movie

There was a time, a long long time ago when spoofing movies worked or at least worked when it came to "Airplane!" because whilst the emphasis was on having fun it was all tied into some cliche storyline. These days that's changed and watching "Date Movie" the emphasis is clearly on just combining as many scenes from other movies into one without a care for a storyline. That's not to say "Date Movie" doesn't have some form of storyline but it is one which is pretty pointless and unimportant and as you would expect is the most cliche romantic comedy storyline you can come up with.

What this means is that "Date Movie" is pretty much a series of gags, a series of scenes plucked from other various rom-coms and thrown together in what is really a messy movie. Now I don't expect anything close to subtlety when it comes to a movie which only intention is to spoof other more famous ones but it is so heavy handed that they might have well dispatched with the slim storyline and just done a gag reel.

It wouldn't have been so bad if all the spoofing was funny but most of it is so crude and tacky that there are very few moments which genuinely make you laugh, well that is if you want laughs which don't rely on juvenile jokes. That is part of the problem as in spoofing various other movies which include "When Harry Met Sally", "My Best Friend's Wedding" and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" to name just a few everything is played to be either seriously juvenile or bordering on the gross such as a zit popping scene or the basket ball scene which spoofs "Along Came Polly".

In amongst all this spoofing there really was just one scene which amused me and that was the spoof of the "Say a Little Prayer" scene from "My Best Friends' Wedding" which for a movie which lasts 85 minutes leaves a lot of time to be unimpressed. But in a strange way there is a bit of fun to be had with "Date Movie" and that is trying to pick up on all the spoofs, all the different movies it cherry picks scenes and characters from and it certainly has a long list of movies it imitates and not just movies as TV shows such as "Pimp My Ride" also get drawn into the mix.

Aside from this there is little else to say and I still question why Alyson Hannigan agreed to take on a role in such a stupid movie, it makes "American Pie" look like Oscar material. But she did and she is one of the better things about "Date Movie" although Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge are quite amusing as the Funkyerdoder's and Sophie Monk is amusing as well as sexy as Andy.

What this all boils down to is that "Date Movie" is basically tacky and cheesy. The art of clever spoofing is definitely not on show with what can only be described as a series of gags which rarely achieve the laughs they set out to. It has its moments but they are seriously few and far between.


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