Movie Review: Dance Flick

Dance Flick (2009) 

Directed by Damien Dante Wayans

Written by Keenan Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Craig Wayans 

Starring Shoshana Bush, Damon Wayans Jr, Essence Atkins, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans 

Release Date May 22nd, 2009 

Published May 23rd, 2009

Streaming on Starz via Amazon Prime (Subscription) 

The spoof movie hasn't been funny since Airplane 2. Fact. You want to talk Naked Gun? It's not necessarily a spoof movie. A spoof movie is one that takes particular movies or genres and aims to send up their inherent ideas and conventions. Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, Date Movie. There is not one laugh in any of these movies.

What we get instead are a series of thuddingly obvious jokes, vague impressions and head scratching vulgarity without any real aim. Dance Flick joins this laughless group.

Directed by Damian Dante Wayans, Dance Flick takes on the conventions of the dance movie starting with the premise of the 2000 drama Save The Last Dance and integrating it with riffs on You Got Served, Step Up and Stomp The Yard. It's not exactly timely. Save The Last Dance which gives Dance Flick its form and plot is nearly a decade old. Step Up 2 bombed last year and my memory of You Got Served and Stomp The Yard would have run together years ago were it not for IMDB.

Given the nature of our moderm media being timely while making movies is not easy. Movies take several months to make and by the time a movie like Dance Flick is completed and released the movies being riffed on are already well out of the cultural memory.

That hasn't stopped the Wayans Brothers in the past from desperately and vainly attempting to be of the moment and their spawn, the makers of Epic Movie, the Scary Movie sequels, Disaster Movie and the like from trying to be timely and failing miserably. In this way, Damian Dante Wayans is really a risk taker, he picks an older movie and sticks to it giving his movie a form that doesn't necessarily rely on timeliness.

Sure, some of the jokes feel a little past their sell by date but they are slightly less desperate than those of other similar movies. Unfortunately, they're just as unfunny. Dance Flick despite not sweating the times Dance Flick still fails to find the funny by crafting jokes so obvious, dumb and outright insulting that the audience spends more time predicting the next joke than laughing at it.

There is one laugh in the movie. It comes when Damian Wayans as the star of the film Thomas and Shoshanna Bush, riffing Julia Stiles luckless character from Save The Last Dance, are talking about her mother dying and Wayans goes off blaming her for her mother's death. It's mostly Wayans' manner that is funny and not necessarily any particular joke, but funny is funny. I laughed.

The biggest obstacle to the parody of Dance Flick is the fact that the targets themselves are so earnestly committed to their dancing premises that they really are send ups of themselves. Movies like Save The Last Dance or Step Up or You Got Served are so campy in their earnest attempts at making dance seem like the most important thing in the world that, in a way, that earnestness beoomes shield from the kind of mocking dealt out in Dance Flick. If something is already ridiculous how does one make it more ridiculous?

Dance Flick doesn't stink nearly as bad as Disaster Movie, Date Movie, Scary Movie or the like but that is a pretty low bar. As I said before there is one laugh in this movie and that's it. If one laugh is good enough for you then absolutely see Dance Flick. Why pay 7 to 11 dollars to see something like Dance Flick when movies it parodies like Save The Last Dance, Stomp The Yard, Step Up and You Got Served themselves have inherently humorous moments that nearly send up themselves.

Movie Review: Deliver Us from Eva

Deliver Us from Eva (2003) 

Directed by Gary Hardwick 

Written by James Iver Mattson

Starring Essence Atkins, Robinne Lee, Meagan Goode, L.L Cool J, Duane Martin

Release Date February 7th, 2003 

Published February 6th, 2003 

The Dandridge sisters hit the genetic lottery; four unbelievably beautiful girls in just one family. Unfortunately, their parents passed away when they were young, leaving the oldest sister Eva (Gabrielle Union) to take care of her younger sisters Kareena (Essence Adkins), Bethany (Robinne Lee) and Jaqui (Meagan Goode).

Eva has spent so much time taking care of her sisters that she has never made much time for a personal life, and now that the sisters are older, she spends her time meddling in their personal lives. Both Kareena and Bethany are married--Kareena to Darrell, a businessman who would like to have a baby; however, Eva tells her sister that she doesn't think they are ready. Bethany is married to Tim, a postal worker who can't get any love because Bethany spends all her time studying at the behest of Eva. Meanwhile, Jaqui is dating a cop named Mike who would like nothing more than to spend the night after they make love but Eva says that good girls don't live with a man before they get married. (But apparently it's okay to sleep with him?)

With Eva in the way, the guys hatch a plan to get her off their backs. The plan involves a friend of Mike's who he claims is the ultimate player. LL Cool J is Ray who, for a fee of five grand, agrees to seduce Eva and convince her to leave town with him, then dump her and leave her wherever they leave to. It's a stupid plan of course with flaws that are quite evident to an intelligent moviegoer, but these guys aren't rocket scientists. So the guys introduce Ray and Eva and the two connect quickly.

Their first date is like a nightmare episode of the show Blind Date. Dinner at a fancy restaurant goes badly after Eva's job as a health inspector lands her in an uncomfortable situation with the restaurant manager.

After that horrible first date, Ray is ready to give up and give the guys their money back. Of course, if he did that there wouldn't be a movie. Of course, fate intervenes and Ray and Eva get another chance. Their next date goes very well and the relationship moves quickly but, because Eva likes Ray and Ray likes Eva the boys plans for getting rid of Eva go wrong. You see, before she met Ray, Eva was going to accept a job in another city, but now that she is with Ray she isn't going anywhere.

Well, as in most romantic comedies, it doesn't take much thought to figure this one out, though director Gary Hardwick does do some unusual and unexpected things. Unfortunately, what he does is so outlandish and over the top and the resolution of this over-the-top twist is so unsatisfying that it undermines the little the film has going for it.

What Deliver Us From Eva has going for it is a fiery romance between Union and Cool J that melts the screen. Their post-coital cuddle conversation is smart, fresh, and sweet and their attraction and chemistry is off the charts. Unfortunately, the supporting players and story is a letdown. The boys played by Duane Martin, Mel Jackson, and Dartanyan Williams are interchangeable parts that leave little impression. As for the younger sisters Meagan Goode, who was so hot in Biker Boyz, is again so very hot in this film though she has little time to make an impression. The same goes for Atkins and Lee who look great but are unmemorable.

Deliver Us From Eva is yet another formula romantic comedy. By the numbers, with a slight charm, it relies too heavily on its lead actors to make a bad script interesting, something very few actors can do and a challenge that is too overwhelming for even actors as talented as Union and LL.