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Meet The Blacks:
Trying to Beat the Dead Horse that are Parody Films
Remember when there was a time spoof movies were actually decent, if not a loveable genre? From hits like Airplane to Naked Gun to Hot Shots to even some entries in the Scary Movie franchise, these films cleverly spoofed genres of films that had clichés we all knew had to be made fun of. So where did everything all go so wrong? Well, films like Meet the Spartans, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, and Date Movie are to blame to unforgivingly making fun of films that didn’t need to be made fun of and somehow surprisingly ended up being worse than the movies they try so desperately to make fun of. The way these movies work now that I’m sure the writers do are just look up trailers to famous movies and make fun of what they see just from the trailer. Lazy screenwriting at its finest and if they actually did do this, I wouldn’t be too surprised.
So how is Meet the Blacks? Well, to its own credit, it’s not as bad as Disaster Movie or Meet the Spartans, but that’s like comparing the smell of a dead rat to a smell of a dead possum. One is definitely worse than the other, but they both still stink. Meet the Blacks manages to do something that spoof movies should never do. It tries to incorporate serious themes about family and honesty in a film that should’ve entirely been just all-out silly and funny! For goodness sake, how does one fail to make a hilarious spoof based on the Purge? I will say, I did chuckle and laugh at times. But the laughs I did have were way too far and between one another that it was hard to consistently enjoy this movie as whole. So let’s go over the positives and negatives.
Positives:
Roland Powell and Michael Blackson – Any time these two actors are on the screen, they made me chuckle or laugh. The movie honestly could’ve been about both of these guys during a purge and I wouldn’t have minded it one bit.
Mike Tyson’s scene – This scene where all credit is due, did make me laugh.
Negatives:
The pacing – This movie really dragged for the first hour and like the movie it actually is making fun of, was dragging for a majority up until the last 30 minutes of the film which actually was the Purge.
Subplots – This stuff was boring, unfunny and tried to give the movie a heart that we don’t necessarily care for nor is it even well done.
The production – This film was probably constrained to a budget but it’s completely obvious through the lack of any outside characters purging and there was a lack of supporting characters so the movie couldn’t even cash in on a premise that could’ve been really special
Dirty humor that doesn’t land – Any joke in this movie about masturbation or teen sex is unfunny and lazy, not to mention at most times boring and repetitive.
Mike Epp’s Character – His character is genuinely unlikeable and stupid to the point that it’s infuriating that the writers expect us to root for him.
Other cameos – They had Charlie Murphy, Snoop Dogg, and even George Lopez as cameos in this film. Okay, I’m not surprised about George Lopez not being funny, but the other two were wasted in this film and were given lines that just didn’t land.
Overall Grade: D+