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 t one point during the first Scary Movie, a penis
is shoved through a bathroom stall, enters a character's ear and exits the other
ear. This is a hilarious sight gag, rather you enjoy lowbrow humor or not.
Fortunately, I sometimes like lowbrow humor, and laughed my proverbial buttocks
off at the gag. Later on in the first Scary Movie, the character Cindy,
who was a virgin, eventually makes love to her boyfriend, and the eventual
orgasm is, quite literally, a gusher that sends poor Cindy to the ceiling by its
force. About a third of the way through Scary Movie 2, a now-no-longer
virgin Cindy gives oral sex to a boy in a freezer and the eventual orgasm is,
quite literally, a gusher that sends poor Cindy flying across the room. If those
two descriptions sound familiar, that's probably because one is a variation on
the former. And that is one of Scary Movie 2's biggest problem.
Scary Movie 2 suffers from the same problem as all
parody movies. It's this: once you make a parody of a genre by turning the clichés
of the genre upside down, how do you then make a sequel and parody the same
genre? Well, one way to do so is to mine the same territory, but this time using
different variations on the same sight gags. Another way is to dig deeper into
the genre's many trappings and lampoon those that you forgot, or missed, the
first time around. Unfortunately for most of Scary Movie 2's running
time, the "gold nuggets" that the original "forgot" is,
well, better left forgotten.
I have a theory that if more than 3 people are credited as
the writer of a movie, the movie is either in trouble, or will be unfocused,
since as the theory goes that if you add more than one author to a project that
project will not have a cohesive foundation. Too many creative thoughts on the
same idea tends to turn the idea to mush, and thus you have incomprehensible
movie where many people have "taken their shot" at it, instead of
having one movie where one person has "given his vision." Take a look
at the sidebar, and you'll notice an army of names credited as writers for Scary
Movie 2. Why is that? Because the movie is not really a movie, it's an
assemblage of skits strung together to form a movie.
Take the first 10 minutes of the movie, where James Woods
does a cameo as a priest doing an exorcist with the help of Andy Richter of
Conan O'Brien fame. The scene goes on for a while, is not all that funny, and 10
minutes later, it's forgotten. There is absolutely no tie-in of merit between
that scene and the rest of the movie, and that goes for Scary Movie 2 as
a whole. There is no cohesiveness, no vision, just a string of gags meant to be
funny or disturbing. In fact, the only real laugh-out-loud scene that I can
point to is when Chris Elliot, playing a butler with a deformed hand, serves
food to the characters by touching and dipping his deformed hand into every
piece of food. The gag is hilarious.
Other scenes that were meant to be funny comes out flat.
These includes the Charlie's Angel parody; a Nikes basketball skit where the
characters all dribble the ball in fancy ways (which, by the way, goes on for
way too long without any payoff); and another scene involving a, get this,
wheelchair race to the death between a handicapped character and a ghost. Not
funny. There's also a lengthy scene involving a possessed hemp tree that grows to
ridiculous size and "rolls" the character Shorty, a pothead, into a
joint and smokes him. The scene is good for a smirk, but it's not as funny as
the filmmakers meant for it to be. And that's the problem with Scary Movie 2
-- it's never as funny as it's supposed to be, or as funny as the filmmakers
thought it would be.
Is the movie completely without laugh? Oh no, there are
some genuinely funny momentss, and almost all of them involves Chris Elliot's
character. There's also a funny scene where Elliot's character, with his deformed
hand, trades barbs with a wheelchair-bound character. Elliot's character would
make puns about feet to the handicapped person, who would return with a pun
about hands and fingers. It's a hilarious, original, and smart scene.
My suggestion to Keenan Ivory Wayans before he makes Scary
Movie 3 (which is already in production) is to get rid of his brother, Marlon,
who plays the pothead Shorty. The Shorty character has run its course and is no
longer funny. Also get rid of his other brother, Shawn, who plays the gay
character Ray. He's also run his course. In fact, Keenan, I suggest firing all
of your family members.
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