Movie Review – Scary Movie 4 (2006)
Overall Quality 3.0 / 5.0 (mildly recommended)
Gay Content 2.0 / 5.0 (several minor gay characters)
Gay Positivity 3.0 / 5.0
“Scary Movie 4″ gets off to a rocky start by pitting Shaquille O’Neal and Dr. Phil against the villainous puzzles of the movie “Saw.” Although I’m impressed with their ability to make light of themselves, it’s more uncomfortable than funny. The movie picks up thereafter, successfully integrating the stories from “Saw” (2004), “War of the Worlds” (2005), “The Grudge” (2004), and “The Village” (2004) into a fairly cohesive plot. Aliens are invading, and our intrepid heroine Cindy (Anna Faris) must find a way to stop them, with some supernatural help.
Faris excels in the role. She brings the perfect combination of emotionally engaging, endearingly oblivious, and comically deadpan to the role. She is, as always, the highlight of the franchise. The other roles are either too brief or brusquely written to stand out. Regina Hall, for example, is also an enjoyable mainstay of the series as Brenda Meeks, but the script gives her little to work with. I suppose the scriptwriters (Craig Mazin, Jim Abrahams, and Pat Proft) were less concerned with character than humor.
Which is my central criticism of the movie. Of course a spoof will fall flat without humor, but successfully integrating the other story elements – character, plot, and theme – creates a gestalt effect which allows the film to become more than the sum of its parts, like director David Zucker’s classic “Airplane!” (1980). Unfortunately, “Scary Movie 4″ never achieves that gestalt effect. The first “Scary Movie” (2000) still reigns as the best of the franchise; this fourth entry easily surpasses the second (2001) and third (2003). Still, don’t pay full price.
The film also spoofs “Brokeback Mountain” in a humorous scene. The bloopers reel on the DVD reveals at least one of the actor’s extreme discomfort with the scene though; even the idea of a same-sex kiss obviously made him squeamish. The residents of “The Village” are also celebrating the domestic partnership between two men, who kiss in one scene and sloppily make out in another. The use of gay content seemed good-natured, and it’s hard to take anything seriously in a spoof. Nonetheless, the gay jokes struck me as vaguely exploitive, Ã la “look, two men kissing, omigod that’s so funny!”
