Genre: Abomination
Cast: Jamie Kennedy, Maria Menounos, other people who should be ashamed of themselves …
Director: Harvey Glazer
Release: (2007)
Jamie Kennedy is officially dead to me. This formerly tolerable supporting actor and semi-amusing comedian, who once could be good for a few reserved chuckles here and there, has just completely obliterated any remaining patience I may have had for him to finally find his niche. It’s hard to sum up exactly how gratingly obnoxious this movie is in human words that could truly communicate it accurately. Imagine the most unbearable people in the world delivering the most aggravating content that humanity could collectively conceive of, and then add some kind of insufferable third dimension of irritation just for good measure, and you might begin to vaguely conceptualize how awful this movie is. For example, imagine having to watch White House Press Secretary Fran Drescher relay a two-hour explanation of George W. Bush’s terrorism-related justification for appearing on Deal or No Deal, with Dikembe Mutumbo sitting next to you giving you wet willies the whole time. Or, imagine going to see Tyra Banks’s one-woman, beat-poetry reinterpretation of Cats, with Robin Williams on his cell phone next to you the whole time, relaying the entire show (with his own added “flair”) to a hard-of-hearing friend of his at home. These are just a few examples of things that could relatively approximate the enjoyability of Kickin’ It Old School at its very best moments.
Jamie Kennedy plays Suckbag Jerkwad Douche III (I may not have the spelling exactly right on that), some awful character who goes into a coma when he bashes his head in a breakdancing accident as a kid and wakes up twenty years later to continue his breakdancing career. (It’s kind of like Encino Man, only more intellectually accessible for the masses). Never have I ever so wished that a kid in a coma had just died. Fortunately for Suckbag, his transition back to life is eased somewhat by the fact that every single person he was friends or enemies with in middle school still lives in the same town (now in their thirties) and many still wear a few of the same easily identifiable pieces of clothing that they were recognizable by in sixth grade. Lucky for him, as well, his own middle school breakdancing gear also grew at the exact same rate as him while it was all hanging in his closet, so that once he woke up he had no shortage of hilariously out of style mesh tops and parachute pants that perfectly fit him still. I’m not sure what the rest of this movie is about, as I spent most of it trying to lobotomize myself with a coat hanger through the ear canal for having been exposed to the first five minutes of it.
From what I can recall though (operation unsuccessful), any attempts at “humor” came in either one of two ways. The first, and most prevalent, was to cram as many references to 80’s pop culture into every single, mundane conversation as possible. A typical example of the dialogue in this movie might be something like:
Suckbag: Hey, you tubular dweeb, what time is it on your Swatch watch? Some other jerk: Chill out, you flippin’ spazz. Let me take my arm out from under this pile of Garbage Pail Kids cards and roll up the sleeve on my acid-washed, jean Smurf jacket. Suckbag: Don’t have a cow, barf bag. I’m just totally stoked about my new Emmanuelle Lewis, Pac-Man, Ocean Pacific t-shirts, hair crimpers, Mt. T, Rubik’s Cube, Rainbow Bright, Cyndi Lauper, jean shorts, Joe Piscopo on Saturday Night Live, and Atari headband. Isn’t it radical? Some other jerk: To the max.
I’m not even a little bit exaggerating when I say that every single conversation in this movie was exactly like that. The second way that what were theoretically to be the jokes in this movie came was in the hacky, pseudo-edgy, racial jokes that they figured they could get away with by putting together a perfectly, microatomically balanced group of stereotypes to serve as Suckbag’s close group of friends and having them riff embarrassingly on each other. These jokes were typically something like:
Stereotype Black Guy: Hey, yo, Stereotype Asian Guy, how come Asian guys all talk so funny? Stereotype Asian Guy: We no talk funny, Stereotype Brack Guy, stop saying that or I come over there and kung-fu karate chop you in your basketball hand. Stereotype Hispanic Guy: Cheell out, homes, let’s go get some rice and beans. Stereotype Black Guy, go see if you can get some money from your moms, while I go get my wildly upholstered car and come back to pick you up. I’ll just honk my Mexican hat dance car horn when I’m out front, and you two fools better be ready ‘cause I’m starving for some chorizo! Yip, yip, ayyieee! Arriba, arriba!
And, so on. Never at any point in this movie does anything interesting, or even defensible, come close to happening. This is, without qualification, the worst piece of unrepentant dog crap of a movie ever to be recorded in any form or format since the dawn of any existing universe in every theoretically imaginable dimension knowable to all possible concrete and abstract forms of life both within and beyond our very molecular beings.
Atrocious.
Grading
Story: F
Acting: F
Visuals: F
Originality/Innovation: F
Enjoyability: F Overall: F, F, F, F, F, F, F, -
