I had high hopes for this movie and they were dashed minutes after the film started. “Date Movie” boasts two of the six writers from “Scary Movie” and apparently it was two writers who stink at writing comedy.

Hoping to start a franchise like “Scary Movie,” that spoofs recent romantic comedies, “Date Movie” targets hit films like “Bridget Jones’ Diary,” “Meet the Parents,” “Hitch,” and “My Big, Fat Greek Wedding,” to name a few. The writers, directors and stars miss their targets completely. The jokes in this film aren’t tongue in cheek, playful jabs, but rather mean-spirited, sophomoric slaps that are aimed at the lowest common denominator and are, worst of all, unfunny.

For instance, “Hitch” gets spoofed by having a black midget play Hitch. Get it? The guy is short and Hitch was...of normal height. Their version of Hitch also has a foul mouth and is completely unlikable. To have a go at “The Wedding Planner,” the writers target J. Lo’s enormous derriere. That’s it. That’s what they could attack out of a 90 minute overly sappy movie. “Meet the Parents” and the sequel “Meet the Fockers” get the worst of it and instead of targeting the clumsiness and social awkwardness from those films, we get an overly active, toilet trained cat, a talented actress wasting her time doing a Barbara Streisand impersonation and a nauseating shout out to the sweaty chest scene in “Along Came Polly.”

This movie was weak all the way around and the actors should take some of the blame as well. Alyson Hannigan, a favorite of mine from the “Buffy” days, is not a lead actress who can carry a film like this. Anna Faris, the lead in the “Scary Movie” films, combines slapstick comedy with impeccable delivery. She is like Leslie Nielsen in the “Naked Gun” movies, someone who can get laughs in just about every scene. Hannigan, while attractive and sweet, is out of her league in this film. Her romantic partner in the film, Adam Campbell, only fares marginally better and that might just be because of a British accent. The rest of the cast is between mediocre (Fred Willard) to excruciatingly awful (Eddie Griffin and Sophie Monk).

I promise you that I’m not being overly harsh or a jerk for no reason; this movie is just plain bad. What frightens me though is how many teenagers in the theater were laughing hysterically at this film. I wanted to hand out coupons to a video store afterwards and tell them to rent “Blazing Saddles,” or heck, even “Hot Shots,” and say, “See, this is how you spoof a genre. You don’t need cats waving matches in the air to have a good time.”

no stars

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