What is comedy? That seems like a strange question to ask after 100 years of cinema, but Epic Movie — the latest from Scary Movie scribes and Date Movie directors Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg — strays so far from the solid fundamentals of filmmaking that it calls the very foundation of humor into question. Is it enough to simply place a familiar pop-culture phenomenon into an unfamiliar context? Can contemporary comedy be reduced to the simple equation “pop-culture reference + slapstick violence or scatology = hilarity”?
Rabin’s opinion seems to be no, hell no. I like how he says that “only the desperation and cynicism feel authentic” in the movie.