Never see, never see, Movie 43
After years of protracted production and script rejections, the movie christened as "The Citizen Kane of awful" - Movie 43 - finally opens in Australian cinemas. Widely savaged by critics the world over, mojo sat down to carve out our own piece of...
After years of protracted production and script rejections, the movie christened as "The Citizen Kane of awful" - Movie 43 - finally opens in Australian cinemas. Widely savaged by critics the world over, mojo sat down to carve out our own piece of this decade's biggest turkey.
MOVIE 43 (MA)
Directors: Bill Odenkirk, Peter Farrelly, Elizabeth Banks, Steven Brill, Steve Carr, Rusty Cundieff, James Duffy, Griffin Dunne, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Brett Ratner, Jonathan van Tulleken
Stars: Dennis Quaid, Greg Kinnear, Kate Winslett, Hugh Jackman, Seth MacFarlane, Anna Faris, Chris Pratt, Naomi Watts, Liev Schrieber, Jeremy Allen White, Kieran Culkin, Emma Stone, Richard Gere, Jason Sudeikis, Uma Thurman, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Patrick Warburton, Gerard Butler, Sean William Scott, Johnny Knoxville, Halle Berry, Stephen Merchant, Terrence Howard, Elizabeth Banks, Josh Duhamel.
Screening: from 7 February 2013
Rating: No stars. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zilch.
By KILLIAN PLASTOW
“ONCE you see it, you can’t unsee it” is how this film is being marketed and, sadly, it's a promise that sticks. Crude, borderline racist and at times homophobic, Movie 43 is an hour and a half of your life that you will regrettably never get back. The premise seems promising: an excellent cast of actors doing ridiculous and offensive things in a series of shorts, but Movie 43 drastically misses the mark. The skits are offensive for the sake of simply being offensive, with no wit, relevance or anything resembling a solid conclusion.
The stories are supposedly intertwined. However, the only common thread is an overarching storyline about a delusional would-be screenwriter (played by Dennis Quaid) who aims to pimp the scripts for the skits seen in Movie 43 ie. the movie you're actually watching (get it?). The tactic is a failed attempt at injecting meta-humour: a clever technique that could never be at home in what is arguably the most unintelligent film to hit cinemas in the last decade.
The cast is superb and do an excellent job considering the slop they've been served. Which just begs the question: how did the studio woo so many brilliant actors with so vapid and banal a script? Stand out performances came from Elizabeth Banks in the Beezel skit where she deals with a psychopathic, homosexual animated cat (yes, you read that right) and Greg Kinnear (The Pitch) whose bewilderment at the scripts being offered by Quaid’s character makes him the most relatable character in the film.
Movie 43 is like a South Park episode penned by a disturbed 12-year old with no understanding of innuendo, nuance, wit or humour. Trying to figure out how this film ever got made will provide far more enjoyment than the film itself.
