2008 / David Zucker > This was a chance for the right to satirize the left in the mainstream market. It had over 1,600 theatres in its widest release, a number generally saved for moderately marketed studio pictures and often guaranteeing superior exposure to the rest of the industry. And opening right before the elections was the best timing it could have gotten to give McCain that slight edge. But no, leave it to Zucker to shit the can once again. It can now be understood that Airplane! was a fluke (and BASEketball was more Trey Parker and Matt Stone than him). He, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have become the bane of Hollywood. But we can only blame them so much if the tickets continue to sell. Unfortunately, there’s a market for those who find Judd Apatow to be too highbrow, and there’s not much anyone can do about that. Nonetheless, An American Carol is lazy and insulting. It makes Uwe Boll’s Postal look like a modern day Jonathan Swift work. Ignore it, and leave Zucker to wonder why the film did so bad at the box office. Leave him wondering so he never releases another film again.

2007 / Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer > I tried to laugh, but this was not funny. The most painful part of Epic Movie is arguably not the film itself, but all that wasted Hollywood parody material. I’m not sure why anyone is being credited with “screenwriting” this film, because it just seemed like they picked movies out of a bag and threw some scenes together to… wait, $87mn in the box office! Where da sequel at?

2007 / James Wan > In his first foray out of the horror genre, the director of the original Saw takes considerable missteps in portraying a revenge-minded father who’s just seen his son brutally murdered. Though Kevin Bacon puts in an adept effort considering the material, the character evolution is weak and oddly paced. In a film such as this, if you plan on taking your work seriously and not simply using it as a method of violence exploitation, you need a foundation on which to base the spillage of the blood on. However, Wan negates any sort of rationale for what happens, making plot decisions that are muddled and hysterical. At the end, there’s an attempt at teaching the moral behind the futility of revenge, but it’s too little, too obvious and too late.

2007 / Chris Miller & Raman Hui > Almost every negative thing I can think of about Hollywood is somehow summed up in this film. Not only does Shrek the Third lack the freshness of the original and the tongue-in-cheek nature of the sequel, but it tries to justify its amalgamation of refuse with a lesson in being yourself. Unfortunately, $800 million in worldwide box office receipts will do little to dissuade the studios from such idiocy. Instead, here comes Shrek Goes Fourth!

2006 / David Zucker > What’s fascinating about a film such as this is that I’ll end up idly watching it, as will the rest of America. This is not so much a film (it’s really not) as it is a character study on the audience: Why do we watch it? Do we actually find it funny? What are our expectations entering the theatre? Aside from the fairly amusing Dr. Phil and Shaquille O’Neal meets Saw introduction, this goes downhill below sea level. Spare yourself and stop at the first Scary Movie, which at least had the saving grace of Carmen Electra’s implants out in the air.