Epic Movie is an epic turd. A colossal failure of epic proportions. A fast-tracked pile of crap that manages, if you can believe this, to be worse than Date Movie.

Taking a page out of the Zucker Brothers parody play book, Epic Movie tries to duplicate a formula that has worked in films like Airplane (my favorite comedy of all time) and, to a certain extent, the Scary Movie franchise but whereas those pictures (most notably, Airplane) had inspired direction and a lively originality about them, Epic Movie lumbers along without a humorous bone in it's painfully uninspired body.

As you've probably already gathered from the title, Epic Movie takes it's aim at the large scale Hollywood event film (think Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Superman, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Star Wars franchise just to name a few) but it finds plenty of time to crib from smaller moneymakers (such epic faire as Borat and Nacho Libre).

Someone should have probably explained to writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer that by introducing a famed character or plot line from a well known movie into theirs, doesn't automatically make the proceedings hilarious. There has to be a payoff or an amusing tie-in, some sort of absurd non sequitir or even a one-liner – recognition alone just for it's own sake is not funny. Sadly, Epic Movie, much like Date Movie (written by the same guys) have yet to figure out this most fundamental rule of parody. Which is a shame because Epic Movie boasts an impressive roster of comic talent, including - Jennifer Coolidge and Darrell Hammond, but it's almost as though they could sense they were aboard a doomed craft and the funny was being sucked from their bodies. Even the eccentric Crispin Glover (he appears as Willy Wonka) is unable to elevate the material. Thankfully, Fred Willard shows up to save the day . . . for all of three minutes.

This film is just a complete mess. The recreated scenes from other movies are poorly handled, and the majority of the film is just palpably unfunny. Watch as a group of pirates break into a rap tinged musical number inspired by that hilarious SNL Digital Short featuring Andy Sandberg and Chris Parnell. When Sandberg and Parnell did it, it was fresh, spontaneous, and outrageous. This re-heated spoof of a spoof however, is simply embarrassing.

The most inspired bit of lunacy in the entire flick are the end credits. They last an epic fourteen minutes (I timed them). No, I'm not kidding. That in of itself is hilarious. Whether or not it was intentional remains a mystery. The rest of the movie is so devoid of humor that I have to believe the end credits were simply a fluke. At any rate, Epic Movie isn't worth sitting through for the end credits, so do yourself a favor and skip it.