One can learn a lot about someone else from what they do or don't laugh at. For instance, the Date Movie audience at the screening I attended didn't laugh much throughout the entire film, so I knew I was a lot like them: bored, tired, and depressed about wasting an hour and a half that could have been used to do something constructive. 

In the gross-out parody tradition of Scary Movie and Not Another Teen Movie, Date Movie takes on the task of lampooning the entire romance genre. This spoof centers around poor Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan), a seriously-overweight young woman who spends her days wondering if Mr. Right will ever sweep her off her feet. Then one day, while working in her father's Greek restaurant (Eddie Griffin plays her dad -- just think about that), Prince Charming arrives in the form of Grant (Adam Campbell), an English-accented hunk who proposes marriage once Julia gets made over by a dwarf date doctor (Tony Cox) and turns into a bombshell. But as the couple prepares for the wedding day, a number of complications arise, from Grant's jealous best "man" (Sophie Monk) to Julia's dad insisting she marry a man of her own heritage (a Greek-Indian-Japanese Jew). 

As with most comedies, spoofs have a strong tendency to be very much hit-and-miss affairs; Date Movie has the accuracy of, to borrow a phrase from Tony Scott's Domino, a ferret on crystal meth. The mark of a successful parody involves its ability to highlight how a genre has become so dependent on cliches and on following a certain formula that the films themselves have evolved into self-parodies of their own. All Date Movie does is run off a checklist of movies falling within its target range, simply throwing in a reference or gag without the slightest hint of skill or satirical spirit. There's no consistency to the film's humor, just a tiresome string of jokes. 

A major problem with this approach is that most of the movies Date Movie makes fun of are actually good ones and not deserving of the spoof treatment at all; as a result, Date Movie arrives with little reason for existing, other than the fact that two of the people who wrote Scary Movie had some time on their hands and a grudge against the romance genre. 

As an added embarrassment, all of the actors are above the lowbrow material they've been given to work with, and they show it. The perky and extremely likable Hannigan trudges through not only a sea of half-baked romcom jabs but also, for the first 20 minutes, yet another phony fat suit (have we learned nothing from Just Friends?). Veterans Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge force themselves through a laughless parody of Ben Stiller's folks from Meet the Fockers. And Eddie Griffin, who's at his best when he's free of any comedic shackles, appears restrained to the point of evoking  pity for the poor guy.

Of course, humor being as subjective as it is, I can't predict whether or not you'll get a kick out of Date Movie. But if the idea of a comedy that's supposed to make fun of date movies yet somehow finds time to spoof King Kong and Kill Bill seems inane to you, then this one's probably not up your alley. 

Personally, I knew something was wrong with Date Movie when a cat puppet with nasty flatulence received the film's biggest laugh. 

MY RATING: * (out of ****)

(Released by Twentieth Century Fox and rated "PG-13" for continuous crude and sexual humor, including language.)