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Scary Movie 4
Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor throughout, some comic violence and language;
The bathroom humor and other forms of bad taste never dry up. They just beg the question, "What do you have to do to get an R around here?"
Carefully avoiding any single work that might jeopardize its teen-friendly PG-13 rating, "Scary Movie 4" regurgitates enough gross-out moments to pack 80-some minutes.
This fourth installment is directed by David Zucker of "Naked Gun" and "Airplane" fame from a screenplay by Craig Mazin and Jim Abrahams, longtime collaborator of Zucker on "Naked Gun" and others. The original "Scary Movie" and "Scary Movie 2" were directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans and written by Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans and many others. Zucker also directed "Scary Movie 3," with a screenplay by the Wayans brothers and others.
In a story than makes something less than horse sense, Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko) Cindy (Anna Faris) and Brenda (Regina Hall) wander through a landscape inhabited by about three dozen guest stars (Leslie Nielsen, James Earl Jones, Dr. Phil McGraw) engaged in broad spoofs of films such as "Brokeback Mountain," "Million Dollar Baby" and the "Saw" series.
Mostly it's "War of the Worlds" meets "The Village," with a Tom Cruise lookalike eventually turning up on an Oprah-like show and behaving like a chimpanzee.
Shocking? Not in the least. What would be shocking is if any of this spoofery were done with the finesse of, say, "Airplane," "Love and Death" or "Young Frankenstein."
