Movie 43: Movie Review

Movie 43: Movie Review

Cast: Dennis Quaid, Greg Kinnear, Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman, Stephen Merchant, Anna Faris,Emma Stone, Kieran Culkin, Elizabeth Banks - and other offenders
Directors: Various

When a film is so reviled in the critics' world and even called the Citizen Kane of awful, you always wonder where the vitriol is coming from.

Movie 43 is such a film, and one train wreck which is rightfully receiving a major panning.

Its loose premise is that a washed up movie producer (played by Dennis Quaid) is so desperate to get his movie made, that he takes a studio executive (Greg Kinnear) hostage and forces him to listen to his crazed and deranged movie ideas.

The catch? Those pitches involve some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

If you are a fan of extremely puerile humour, and set ups that have very little pay off plus are an adolescent boy, then Movie 43 is for you.

As this series of 13 "interconnected" stories are rolled out, each of them suffers from a lack of any real humour or panache that you actually begin to wonder why the actors involved (who have some pretty impressive calibre) are even part of what's playing out - do the powers that be have some real quality blackmail on the cast to use?

There's the likes of Hugh Jackman with a pair of testicles hanging from his neck, Halle Berry going to extremes for truth or dare, Gerard Butler as a leprechaun, Anna Faris begging to be pooped on by her lover - the list of degradation and bad taste goes on without a hint of humour in sight. It may be the chance for such quality actors to act in such juvenile ways proved way too beguiling, but I can't fathom why they didn't realise it just wasn't as funny as it could have been.

The only two segments which vaguely hit the spot are Emma Stone and Kieran Culkin as a couple trying to sort stuff out in a supermarket and an ad which claims small children working in vending machines have lives too - so, not exactly setting the bar high, but, trust me, when you see the rest of what's on offer, this is the cinematic pinnacle of this offering. Even though the segments are short, there's another terrible one lining up to take its place, with a major Hollywood star looking to lose an ounce of their own dignity.

With predictable pay offs, a lack of laughs despite occasional raunchiness, it's easy to see why Movie 43 is being roundly panned and I'd advise you to think twice about whether you want to go and see it. The attempts at gross out humour fail miserably and it makes the American Pie franchise look like Shakespeare and Benny Hill and Borat seem sophisticated.

It is, without a doubt, the worst film of 2013 - and if anything else reaches this level at any stage this year, it'll be a sad indictment of the death of the magic of cinema.

Rating: