Movie Review: Movie 43 is bad YouTube comedy at the cinema

Sometimes a movie comes along and it’s universally panned by critics. Each review seems like it’s trying to outdo the rest in its effort to describe how awful the experience is. It feels like a bandwagon of hate and sometimes I find myself disagreeing completely.

This is not one of those times.

Movie 43 is really, really bad. It’s one thing to be a comedy lacking laughs, but when the creators couldn’t even be bothered to pull together a narrative, instead opting for a pile of sketches, that is truly lazy. You, creators of Movie 43, may think your collection of skits is refreshing and fun, but please, keep it out of the movie theater and put it back on YouTube where it belongs.

There was one sketch in Movie 43 that I enjoyed. That’s extremely low, even by sketch comedy standards. This form of comedy is notoriously hit or miss, especially on television, where writers are forced to create dozens of segments and keep up a pace on a weekly basis. That wasn’t a crutch Movie 43 has to deal with though. In fact, the film took four years to create, thanks to the busy schedules of the various famous actors featured.

Four years for eleven nearly intolerable skits and one mildly amusing segment that lasted all of two minutes? That’s a level of ineptitude even the most blatantly exploitative comedy lacks. You could probably add up the time and star power of the entire Scary Movie series and it still wouldn’t match Movie 43. And at least with Scary Movie you might actually laugh a couple times.

It just goes to show that throwing money at a problem usually doesn’t solve it. Movie 43 has quite possibly the most epic cast of all time, a pile of comedy writers, cameos, cartoon cats, and yet it all adds up to garbage. The sheer amount of talent that went to waste here is baffling.

It’s amazing that in the process of making this film, not one of the many talented actors and comedians on hand spoke up and asked how many more times they’d have to dip prosthetic gentalia into food items or toss around fecal matter. Vulgar humor is one thing, vulgarity in general can be potent in horror movies, it can even be used effectively to shock audiences. Here the gross-outs are just there, barely registering a reaction, just like every other aspect of the movie. I’d get the same reaction out of Movie 43 if I were in the theater or in a coma.

Is Movie 43 the worst movie of all time? Maybe. I don’t know. I’m going to say no, just so it can remain terrible yet forgettable. I’d rather not discuss it ever again.