#6: Dance Flick
When a friend suggests you stick your hand in a blender because the appliance works so well when you put fruit into it, don't do it. When a friend suggests you let him hit you with his car because people in the movies always get up just fine after they're run over, don't do it. And when a friend suggests you see Dance Flick because Scary Movie was pretty funny, for the love of God, don't do it. I'm smart enough to know the first two.
To address your question, I'm not sure what I was thinking. I will reiterate throughout this blog that a friend convinced me to see it and that this was not on my own volition. Scary Movie was all right, so I don't know what I was expecting out of this one. Maybe it's because I hate dance movies so much I thought that the Wayans brothers could spoof them out of fashion. But I now feel like I would have actually rather paid for one of those than for this.
When this was advertised I was afraid it would be like Meet the Spartans, The Comebacks, Date Movie, Disaster Movie, Superhero Movie, Epic Movie--movies that call themselves parodies merely because they consist entirely of rehashing popular films. But my friend convinced me that those were not by the Wayans Brothers like Scary Movie was, so this would be their return to form. Why didn't I ask myself what form this was?
What my friend didn't tell me was that this one was by Damien Dante Wayans. In the game of "How many Wayans brothers can you name" that one doesn't come up too often. Had I known that before he convinced me to see the movie with him, I might have taken a closer look. This was the epitome of the misunderstanding of parody.
There is nothing inherently funny about recreating a scene from a popular movie with new, less attractive actors. Therefore, any scenes that were nothing more than an obvious reference to another movie with no punchline to be found were immediately ineffective. I've always considered a parody to be something that uses the original against itself to poke fun at the original (...like in Scary Movie). Making your product a string of absurd stream of conscious nods to blockbusters makes the originals look better, not worse. The movie was so concerned with slapstick and crude humor that it forgot to exploit the innumerable holes in the stereotypical dance movie.
Despite a few laughs from racial and sexual jokes, when my friend convinced me to see this movie even the many middle schoolers who found their way into the theater were largely quiet; there just weren't that many laugh-out-loud moments. Of course, movies can be funny without those moments, but if your selling point is a ridiculous spoof they really should be there. After the first half hour when I hadn't laughed once, Marlon Wayans came on and I thought his presence might inject at least a little life into the film. I'm not really sure why I thought that.
The rest of the movie consisted of a joke format I vote we officially declare deceased: the literal interpretation of figures of speech. When Shawn Wayans comes into the room pronouncing he's here to pick up his son, and he proceeds to step forward, lift his son for a second, and then leave, and not a single person in the theater laughs, you know this band of brothers has exhausted that one.
However, I can't be angry at how terrible this was; it'd be like getting angry at myself for running a marathon after eating at Chili's. Live and learn.
Also, my friend convinced me to see this movie.
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