Dance Flick
I know some people think I'm crazy when I say that the Wayans Brothers haven't done one good thing since I'm Gonna Get You Sucka(The Five Heartbeats doesnt count). And while I'm respectful of all opinons I really must say that they are all completely wrong. There was a time when the Wayans' knew how to truly spoof a genre, or lampoon a specific social issue, with intelligence by being absolutely absurd. I point you in the direction of Hollywood Shuffle as example numero uno, which made fun of a wealth of topics while focusing mainly on the idea of tokenism in film. Most of the people I argue with point to Scary Movie as an example of a good Wayans film, to which I wholeheartedly disagree. It's watchable by comparison to everything else they've done, but good? Computer say no.
There is a sense in Dance Flick that perhaps the Wayans' are attempting to pass the baton, so to speak. And if that's the case then I would say they dropped it and the Angolan team just sped off to a victory lap. Dance is yet another in a long line of disastrous "spoof" comedy films that have all the creativity and insight as the writings on a bathroom wall. In fact the biggest leap to originality that they could muster was the use of the word "Flick" to separate themselves from their former "Movie" franchise, which has death spiraled over the last couple of years. Damon Wayans, Jr. stars as Thomas, doing a weak parody of the Sean Patrick Thomas character in Save the Last Dance. The extremely plain looking Shoshana Bush plays Megan White, rich white girl in the vein of Julia Stiles in the same film. Thomas is a street dancer. Megan a former ballerina or something, they never quite make it clear since the one time she does dance she just kicks people in the grill. Thomas takes it upon himself to help the new girl along, and ofcourse they fall in love...atleast when nobody of their own race is around(ha ha that's funny, right?)
Old standbys Keenan Ivory Wayans and David Alan Grier make token appearances here, and if anything they serve to accentuate just how far they all have fallen. Wayans shows up as the shady emcee of the underground dance battles, in a direct parody of movies like You Got Served and Stomp the Yard. Does he do anything funny with it? No. Grier plays an extremely fat gangster whom Thomas owes money to. Funny? Does it sound funny? Honestly? Ofcourse it's not. It's about as funny as Grier's Chocolate News program which lasted for an eyeblink of time on Comedy Central.
Flick dredges up the typical Wayans gags that haven't made anyone outside the methodone clinic laugh since 1990. Seriously? These are your parodies?
We wanna poke fun at Hairspray. Ok, so the idea is to just have a fat chick who looks like Tracy Turnblad. Does she do anything funny to show why she needs to be parodied? No, she just resembles her. Oh.
We wanna poke fun at Step Up 2 The Streets. Ok, so the idea is to have a guy who looks like the cleancut whiteboy from that film. Does he do anything funny to show why he deserves to be parodied? No. Oh.
I wanted to exit the Laugh Free Environment that I was watching this mess in, but felt obligated to stay to see how lame the ending would be. Early in the film I predicted an awful parody of Twilight, since I felt that no Wayans film would be complete without jabbing a pointy stick at whatever the biggest phenomenon was regardless of whether it fit with the premise or not. Lo and behold, the movie capped with a limpdick Twilight closing, where one of characters turns into a vampire. Lucky guess? Maybe. Predictable? Absolutely. Dreadful all the way around.
2/10
