Date Movie: Is My Milkshake Really Better Than Yours?

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the movies, along comes Date Movie. Written by two of the six writers of Scary Movie, Date Movie promises to spoof the teen to adult romance and dating movies of the past decade, an untapped wealth of material begging to be slapped in the face.

Our story begins with Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan), a rather rotund young lady, attempting to attract any man she can and lamenting in her condition. Her parents want her to find a man that shares her faith and heritage (good luck) and settle down. Julia just wants to find love. She already knows who she wants, the guy she shared a glance with in her parent’s restaurant.

In her pursuit of amore, she enlists the aid of Hitch (Tony Cox) who tries to “fix her up” so that he can fix her up with, well… a man if he can manage it. He comes up with the great idea of getting her on a dating reality show so that she can be noticed. It just so happens that her ideal man, Grant Fonckyerdoder (Adam Campbell) the guy from the restaurant, is the contestant who finds her.

From here, Julia and Grant begin a courtship turning toward marriage. The situation comedy and parodies continue as the couple lives through arranging a wedding, an unhappy father and the complications involved with bringing two families together.

With all of the hype around it this movie has a lot to live up to. It would be harsh to compare Date Movie to a pioneer of this genre like Airplane, but it does have the same campy feeling. Also Date Movie attempts to roll up some of the same type of shock scenes prevalent in its Scary Movie cousins. What it lacks is continuity in the story as it bounces from one comedic reference to another. The writers just tried to put too many parodies in to one film.