Starring:
Anna Faris as Cindy Campbell
Simon Rex as George
Anthony Anderson as Mahalik
Kevin Hart as CJ
Charlie Sheen as Tom
Pamela Anderson as Becca
Jenny McCarthy as Kate
Jianna Ballard as Sue
Jeremy Piven as Ross Giggins
Drew Mikuska as Cody
Regina Hall as Brenda Meeks
Darrell Hammond as Father Muldoon
Simon Cowell as Himself
Fat Joe as Himself
Ajay Naidu as Sayaman
Denise Richards as Annie
Queen Latifah as Aunt Shaneequa
Eddie Griffin as Orpheus
Leslie Nielsen as President Harris
D.L. Hughley as John Wilson
Ja Rule as Agent Thompson
George Carlin as Architect
Eric Breker as Secret Serviceman Jones
Special Features:
Alternate Ending
Outtakes and Bloopers
Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary
“Hulk vs. Aliens: Behind The Scenes of the Alternate Ending”
“The Making of Scary Movie 3”
“The Making of Scary Movie 3…FOR REAL”
Feature Commentary With Director David Zucker, Producer Robert K. Weiss And Writers Craig Mazin and Pat Proft
Other Info:
Widescreen (1.85:1) Enhanced for 16×9 Televisions
Dolby 5.1 Digital Surround Sound
French Language
Spanish Subtitles
Running Time: 84 Minutes
Synopsis:
This is the third movie in the Scary Movie trilogy.
News reporter Cindy Campbell discovers that a video tape is being distributed that, when watched, kills the viewer seven days later. She also discovers that it has a mysterious connection to aliens that have been plaguing farmers George and Tom. Things take a more desperate turn when Cindy and her nephew Cody watch the tape and are marked for death themselves. The only ones she can turn to for help are George and his rapping buddies Mahalik and CJ. But will they be able to help her before a full scale alien invasion occurs?
Scary Movie 3 is rated PG-13 for pervasive crude and sexual humor, language, comic violence and drug references.
The Movie:
I never saw Scary Movie or Scary Movie 2, so I wasn’t sure if I would be able to follow Scary Movie 3. Well, that wasn’t a problem at all considering there was very little plot to the film. It really is just a series of parodies strung loosely together by something barely resembling a plot. In fact, a group of teenage boys with no experience and a video camera probably could have come up with something better than the story in Scary Movie 3.
Despite this, the film does offer up a few laughs. It is in top form when it is poking fun at other movies. You’ll find parodies of The Ring, Signs, 8 Mile, The Matrix, and others. Scary Movie 3 is also filled with amusing cameos by American Idol’s Simon Cowell, George Carlin, Denise Richards, and others. Jenny McCarthy and Pamela Anderson also provide a really funny prologue to the movie. A bunch of singers and rappers also make cameos including Master P, Macy Gray, Redman, Method Man, Raekwon, RZA, and U-God. (No, I’ve never heard of most of these and yes, I had to look them up.)
Leading the main cast is Anna Faris as Cindy Campbell. She starred in the first two movies as well. I thought she did a good job and was excellent with the comedy. She’s a good “straight man” and has the great reactions to everything that happens around her. And for some reason the kid that played her nephew, Drew Mikuska, also cracked me up. He’s constantly being hit and thrown around and is the hapless victim of many of the physical gags in the movie. Other main cast members like Charlie Sheen, Anthony Anderson, and Leslie Nielsen are generally really funny in other movies but they don’t have much to do in this film. That was a big disappointment to me. On a positive note, while I can’t compare it to Scary Movie or Scary Movie 2, I do believe it relies less on sexual humor than the first two films. That gives it a little bit more originality and makes it accessible to a wider audience.
Overall I think this movie could have been a lot better than it was. I think some better movies could have been parodied and a more coherent plot could have been written.
The Extras:
There are quite a few extras included on this DVD. Here are the highlights:
Alternate Ending This ending is significantly different from the one in the movie. In it, it is revealed that the video, her nephew, and the priest were all figments of Cindy’s imagination. In fact, she’s a psychiatric patient off of her medication. Just as they start to really write her off as crazy, real aliens invade. The aliens, looking significantly different from the ones in the final version, attack George. He then turns into the Hulk and fights them. One fight move features him shoving the head of one alien up his butt. (Yes, lovely.) Anna then runs back into the house to fight the little girl in the video one last time. Queen Latifah and Eddie Griffin return to guide her into the TV to battle her in a Matrix-like environment. They recreate the Burly Brawl with Cindy dressed as Trinity fighting dozens of the evil little girls. She wins, but dies in the process and George must resurrect her ala Neo in The Matrix Reloaded. This new ending is around 15 minutes long and is quite extensive. It also really sucks. It is stupid, disjointed, and a lame ending. They made the right choice in redoing it though I’m surprised they scrapped this much footage. There are a couple of good parts here and there that probably could have been salvaged, but overall it looks like a lot of money was wasted doing this.
Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary The rest of the deleted scenes are fairly brief. There are little bits here and there which are added to the 8 Mile parody. There are also a few more scenes with Faris and Jeremy Piven in the newsroom. You see some of Anna’s sexy, exploitive news segments and a depressing 7 day forecast she gives for the weather (after hearing she’ll be killed in seven days). You also see that the car in the final scene that hits Cody was driven by Michael Jackson. (Probably a good move legal-wise to remove that.) All of these deleted scenes can be viewed with commentary from the creators.
Outtakes and Bloopers These are you typical line flubs and prop mistakes. They’re generally a lot of fun and this one is, too.
“Hulk vs. Aliens: Behind The Scenes Of The Alternate Ending” This gets heavy into the making of the scrapped alternate ending. They spend a lot of time showing how the elaborate alien costumes were made. They also show how they shot the scenes with the Hulk. Again, I’m amazed at just how much time and effort they spent on this just to leave it on the DVD.
“The Making Of Scary Movie 3” This is your standard “making of” video featuring interviews with the cast and crew. They talk extensively with David Zucker, Anna Faris, Queen Latifah, Eddie Griffin, and everyone else. A lot of time is spent on all the rappers that have cameos in the film as well. And from the looks of the behind-the-scenes videos here, there was a whole lot more Matrix-like footage shot that isn’t even featured in the deleted scenes portion of this disc. This video also confirms the feeling that I got that they were making up the story as they went along. They flat out confirm it here.
“The Making Of Scary Movie 3…FOR REAL” This is a brief video where everyone clowns around saying what a tyrant Zucker is. There’s some funny stuff here and it is good to check out.
Feature Commentary With Director David Zucker, Producer Robert K. Weiss And Writers Craig Mazin and Pat Proft These guys have a lot of fun delivering the commentary for this movie. They talk a lot about scenes that they shot but discarded. They also talk about all the thought (or lack thereof) that went into the jokes. They also keep a running tally of the number of head bonks that occur. It’s a pretty entertaining commentary and worth listening to if you enjoyed the movie.
The Bottom Line:
Scary Movie 3 is probably worth checking out if you’re slightly curious, but otherwise it’s not as good as it could have been. It will definitely help if you’ve actually seen The Ring, The Matrix, Signs, and 8 Mile.
