Main cast: Anna Faris (Cindy Campbell), Charlie Sheen (Tom), Simon Rex (George), Regina Hall (Brenda Meeks), Jeremy Piven (Ross Giggins), Queen Latifah (Aunt Shaneequa), Tim Stack (Carson Ward), Drew Mikuska (Cody), Jianna Ballard (Sue), Denise Richards (Annie), Anthony Anderson (Mahalik), Camryn Manheim (Trooper Champlin), Jenny McCarthy (Kate), and Pamela Anderson (Becca)
Director: David Zucker
Well, the third instalment of the Scary Movie franchise is a vast improvement over the craptastic second movie. It has long lost its novelty movie and it is nowhere as funny as the original, but it still makes a decent movie to rent when one has to choose between this movie and cleaning the fridge. This time around, the Wayan brothers are content to be merely producers of the movie while the directing and the scripting are helmed by the people that bring us the Naked Gun movies. Oh god is right.
As the opening sequence featuring Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy in a bimbo-gone-Sadako soon shows, Scary Movie 3 takes its materials from The Ring as well as Signs and 8 Mile. In this case, our heroine Cindy Campbell is now a news reporter searching for a scoop that will make her a reporter to be reckoned with. She is also the guardian of a little boy, Cody. She meets Brenda again, as Brenda teaches at the nursery where Cody goes to, and Brenda talks about this video she saw where… you know, The Ring and all that. Annie also meets George, a wigger (this is where the 8 Mile stuff comes in) whose brother Tom is living the life of Mel Gibson’s character in Signs. Mayhem and insanity break out when aliens come to kill everybody.
It is hard to actually rate this movie because Scary Movie 3 is nothing more than a series of running gag. But one thing that is in its favor is that it sure makes more sense than the actual movies it lampoons. But apart from that, there is very little that is actually funny about it. Brenda Meeks is the only fun character here as she takes lots of cheap shots at the way things are, but Regina Hall’s role in this movie is nothing more than a glorified B-list cameo like half the cast listed. Unimaginative cameos by Simon Cowell and Leslie Nielsen fall flat. Charlie Sheen’s comedic timing is off. Simon Rex is pretty good at playing an unlikable loser but the thing is, he’s playing a loser. Anna Faris as usual seems to be laboring harder than the others to carry this show on her own. Just why is she doing this movie anyway? A check on IMDB shows that her schedule isn’t the busiest around. I hope she isn’t going to be stuck doing this franchise for the next eighty years.
Still, while it is not too funny, Scary Movie 3 isn’t irritating or too distasteful like the second movie, so it’s watchable, if not much else. But seriously, let the Scary Movies die already!
