Movie Review: Movie 43 (2013)

A distressingly bad comedy, Movie 43 features 14 unrelated sketches, a galaxy of star names who should know better, and maybe one genuine laugh.

The one common thread is a struggling writer pitching this movie to a producer on a Hollywood lot. The sketches include a blind date between an anxious woman and an eligible bachelor with a testicle-like growth on his neck; two lovers quarreling in the supermarket while the announcements microphone is on; a young adolescent girl getting her first period while at the house of a friend; an all-black high school basketball team getting ready for their first big game against a white team; a blind date which descends into a high stakes truth or dare fiasco; two men kidnapping a leprechaun; a digital music device in the form of a full-sized naked woman with the potential to mangle male anatomical parts; and a woman competing for her man's attention against a vicious animated cat.

Some of this sounds funny in writing, but thanks to witless execution and sloppy writing, none of it is remotely funny on-screen. An army of writers and directors put this mess together, with Peter Farrelly the culprit-in-chief. The stars briefly on parade include Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman, Gerard Butler, Emma Stone, Elizabeth Banks, Richard Gere, Dennis Quaid, Uma Thurman, Halle Berry, Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber and Chloë Grace Moretz.

Movie 43 descends quickly to the land where cheap vulgarity and rampant offensiveness are mistaken for laughs, and while there may be an audience pathetic enough for this kind of dross, what remains incredible is that so many respected names chose to associate with this fiasco. Filmed over several years and with none of the actors having full visibility or understanding of the full project, this will remain an embarrassing blot on many resumes.

Movie 43 has a title that means nothing, and is an exercise in execrable excrement.

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