Plot: What’s it about?
Oh my. They did it again, didn’t they? Back in 2000 a truly funny, clever and inventive movie came out by the name of “Scary Movie.” This movie poked fun at the then very popular genre of the teen slasher/horror films and it did a very good job at doing so. In fact, the movie out grossed movies like “Scream” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer” the very movies that were being lampooned in the film. Naturally with the success of this movie came a sequel (the aptly-titled “Scary Movie 2”) and at last count they’re up to “Scary Movie 4.” But it didn’t stop there. As we all know, there are countless of other genres out there and we began to see parodies of those as well. “Date Movie”, “Epic Movie”, “Superhero Movie” and the latest in the _______ Movie line: “Disaster Movie”. And honestly, I can’t think of a more accurate title for this pathetic excuse for a film.
“Disaster Movie” has about as much of a plot as it does Oscar-caliber actors in the cast. And it goes without saying that anything with Carmen Electra in it, might not be a good bet financially-speaking (though she was present in a few of the “Scary Movie” films). The date is August 29 and the end of the world is upon us, so Will (Matt Lanter) and his buddies are trying to get out of the city. And, well, that’s about it. The film shows us a foursome including Calvin (G-Thang), and Juney (Christa Flanigan). Honestly I gave up trying to find what semblance of a plot there was and decided instead to try and list the movies that this movie attempted to parody (and by “attempted to parody” I mean, they had a recognizable character from a good movie in this one). So here goes”Indiana Jones IV”, “Iron Man”, “Hulk”, “Juno”, “10,000 B.C.”, “The Dark Knight”, “Alvin and the Chipmunks”, “Step Up 2: The Streets”, “Hellboy”, “Enchanted”, “Beowulf”, “Prince Caspian”, “The Love Guru”, “High School Musical”, “Hancock”, “Speed Racer”, “Kung Fu Panda” and “Cloverfield”. Ok, that’s what to expect there.
“Disaster Movie” is about the most insane excuse for a movie that I’ve ever seen and trust me, I’ve seen a lot of movies. It made a bit more sense to me when I was actually watching the supplements (I was wondering why as well) and saw the date of filming as “May 18, 2008”. I highly doubt that any movie shot in May and released in August can really be considered good, but I could be mistaken. I really can’t recommend this film to anyone and usually these films are good for at least a couple of laughs, but I had no suck luck with this one. Hopefully the paltry $15 million gross for this film will signify that these movies no longer have any sort of relevance and they’ll stop making them. Hey, we can hope can’t we?
Video: How does it look?
Despite what was going on screen, I have to say that “Disaster Movie” actually looked pretty good. The 1.85:1 AVC HD transfer is very clean, bright and sports an array of vivid colors. There’s nary an artifact to be seen and this is certainly initiative of what a new to Blu-ray film should look like. There are plenty of CGI effects in the film so they do appear a bit hurried (as expected), but my only wish is that for a film like this to look this good, it seems a bit of a sin to all the films out there that are deserving of a good transfer. No one said life was fair.
Audio: How does it sound?
As good as the movie looks, it actually sounds pretty darn good as well. Lionsgate has given us a DTS Master Audio soundtrack that really rocks. During several of the scenes, the LFE really took over and actually did manage to get my attention for a few minutes. There are a few song and dance numbers (why not, right?) that sound very robust. Dialogue is very rich and natural and you’d do best not to actually listen to the words, but rather the actual audio quality itself. Surrounds are present and do chime in at several key points as well. Again, it’s a shame that such a good soundtrack is wasted on such a movie.
Supplements: What are the extras?
As far as supplements go, we’ve got eight short featurettes that range from some simple behind the scenes footage, to watching Carmen Electra and Kim Kardashian wrestling. There’s a sing along for the “High School Musical” sequence as well as the “I’m F***ing Matt Damon sequence” to boot. The MoLog feature uses BD-Live to let you insert shapes into the film and communicate with other users who are watching the movie, though with this film you might be the only one viewing it. My advice: though it looks and sounds good, stay away far away.
