I am pulling my contributions from an old Yehoodi thread, but I just am so tickled with these, I had to share them with you all. The gag is to write a full review of a movie you have no need to see, based solely on what you can determine from the trailers.
The Whole Ten Yards
Long before DeNiro showed us that tough guys could be funny in Analyze This, Bruce Willis was goonishly mugging his way through “Moonlighting”. But despite this glorious pedigree, The Whole Ten Yards is brought down by the inclusion of the always unfunny Amanda Peet, who fails to bring even the modicum of comedic timing she displayed in such masterpieces as Body Shots and Saving Silverman. Matthew Perry phones in the same character he’s been playing since Fools Rush In, complete with second season Friends-era mugging. However, nothing less is expected from the director who brought us other unrequested sequels such as Grumpier Old Men, and The Odd Couple 2. One wonders what happened to the Howard Deutch who brought us Pretty In Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful.
This reviewer thinks it was a little program called “Melrose Place”.
The Wedding Date
It’s a shame to see Debra Messing lower herself to a forumlaic movie like this, abandoning the artistic integrity she displayed in Garfield and Along Came Polly, but a girl’s gotta eat, I suppose. Dermot Mulroney somehow manages to convince us all that he can play more than just smarmy…he can play smarmy with *heart*.
Kangaroo Jack
There’s a special place in Hell for Jerry Bruckheimer. After he brought us Coyote Ugly and The Rock, it was an easy path down that slippery slope that lands at Kanagroo Jack.
In this comedy (and I use the term loosely), two friends (played by Jerry O’Connel of Tomcats fame and Barbershop‘s Anthony Anderson, who after Big Momma’s House really should know better) get caught up in a dangerous web of organized crime, and (naturally) become “carriers” for $10,000 of Mob money. Like so many mobster initiates, they fall victim to a devious kangaroo, who bounces off with the 10 large, necessitating a long, elaborate, and infrequently amusing chase through the Australian outback.
O’Connell demonstrates the hackish comedic indignation he perfected in in such gems as Body Shots, which provides the perfect foil to Anderson’s over-the-top mugging. This one-joke pony never gets hopping, and rest assured, all the funny bits were in the trailer. Which was not funny at all.