New film exhausts recycled film plot genre

“Scary Movie” revived the spoof movie genre in 2000. With its success, America essentially told Hollywood two things: Spoof movies are good ideas and the Wayans Brothers are funny. Therefore, the success of “Scary Movie” was one of the great tragedies of American entertainment.

“Scary Movie 2” came out the following year and had a huge drop off in revenue. The Wayans knew enough to get out then, but these movies still turned a profit so they kept getting made.

Two of the six writers of “Scary Movie,” Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, decided the “Scary Movie” franchise was so hilarious that they would apply the formula to other genres. They wrote and directed “Date Movie” and “Epic Movie.” The trailers didn’t mention their names, but they were the ones to blame for those movies.

With these later spoof movies, the writers started to break their own rules. They overreached their genre when “Napoleon Dynamite” was pulled into “Date Movie” and “Borat” was used in “Epic Movie.” Celebrities were spoofed in these movies for no apparent reason. Long after its topical expiration date, Tom Cruise’s infamous “Oprah” visit was parodied in “Scary Movie 4.” “Epic Movie” made sure to include overdone jokes about Mel Gibson, Kanye West and Paris Hilton to name a few.

Released on Friday, “The Comebacks” is a spoof movie that actually doesn’t have its origin from any of the writers of “Scary Movie.” This is surprising because “The Comebacks” looks just as unfocused and unfunny as “Date Movie” and “Epic Movie” did.

“The Comebacks” breaks its only rule of spoofing “the greatest sports movies ever.” The movie does parody two classics, “Field of Dreams” and “Remember the Titans,” but it also parodies an array of forgettable sports movies like “Invincible,” “Radio,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Bend it like Beckham,” “Stick It” and “Blue Crush.”

The most baffling thing about this release is why the creators even packaged it this way. Why not just say “The Comebacks” will spoof all the sports movies made in the last five years? Why raise the audience’s expectations only to disappoint them?

Their approach also creates another problem: if the movies parodied aren’t memorable, how will audiences even understand half the jokes? A recent movie isn’t necessarily recognizable to a public that hasn’t seen it.

But let’s say “The Comebacks” did spoof all classic sports movies. It would still be up to the direction, screenplay, and acting of the movie to determine its worth. Unfortunately, these ideas prove secondary in today’s spoof movie.

These movies manage to squeeze in so many parodies in roughly 90 minutes because they aren’t fully developed ideas. They are usually one-liners used to check off another movie on the laundry list. Stories are created simply as afterthoughts.

It could be argued that these movies fail in how specific they are. In “Shaun of the Dead,” writers Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright used humor that could be applied to many horror films, which broadened the audience. They did the same with buddy cop films in “Hot Fuzz.” “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” were able then to work as complete, original films, rather than a collection of sketches.

Hopefully, the “Scary Movie” inspired films will eventually cease. It is becoming increasingly clear they are viewed as a cash cow to turn a profit. Never has so little effort been continually rewarded at the box office.