Scary Movie

Keenan Ivory Wayans ain't gonna get you this time -- sad to say, those days are fading fast. Scary Movie takes the Wayans clan deeper into comic purgatory. Parody works when the mechanics of a stock plot give way effortlessly to a punch line (see Airplane) and the jokes are a function of the action. Despite a credited crew of six writers (including junior Wayanses Shawn and Marlon), this effort flops because the jokes, which are piled on with encyclopedic fervor, are extraneous -- even though the film rehashes Scream scene for scene and at times line for line. The acting doesn't help: with the exception of the imbecilic mugging of Marlon Wayans, the actors play it so flat that they never create the stock types the jokes should play off. Scary Movie has its moments (particularly the ganja humor), but it remains clueless. "Did Scream have a plot? Did I Know What You Did Last Summer make any sense?" a killer asks when pressed about his motive. But which crime is he accounting for? The murders or the movie?

-- J.J. Braider