Since the Scary Movie films, we've had to endure Date Movie, Epic Movie Disaster Movie, Dance Flick ad nauseum; it seems this trend will never end. 20th Century Fox, who are distributing The Onion Movie clearly didn't know how to handle this movie in the UK, so they slapped the new title News Movie on it.
The Onion Movie is a lot better than the collection of weak parodies it's been lumped in with. While it is true that some of the satire has dated and more than a handful of the jokes lack great punchlines, the fact is that this is still an amusing way to spend 75 minutes.
The majority of the film takes the form of mock news broadcasts, from America's Finest News Source – The Onion. Eventually a slight narrative thread begins to link the sequences and a denouement brings it all together. But like some other films with the "Movie" moniker it's all essentially an afterthought.
Steven Seagal almost steals the movie in a spoof trailer for a film called Cockpuncher but it's the over-the-top Britney Spears parodies written by Asche & Spencer that are the highlights. Performed by Lisa Marie Furth, the songs of the imaginary Melissa Cherry character (played by Sarah McElliot) are near perfect imitations of conventional pop tunes and it's a shame that no soundtrack is available.
Directed by Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire (but credited to James Kleiner), The Onion Movie was produced by David Zucker, director of the first two The Naked Gun movies and the last two Scary Movie sequels among many others. While it doesn't come close to the former it's certainly no worse than the latter. In this age of lazy comedy writing that's probably the most praise one give a film like this.
The Onion Movie is a lot better than the collection of weak parodies it's been lumped in with. While it is true that some of the satire has dated and more than a handful of the jokes lack great punchlines, the fact is that this is still an amusing way to spend 75 minutes.
The majority of the film takes the form of mock news broadcasts, from America's Finest News Source – The Onion. Eventually a slight narrative thread begins to link the sequences and a denouement brings it all together. But like some other films with the "Movie" moniker it's all essentially an afterthought.
Steven Seagal almost steals the movie in a spoof trailer for a film called Cockpuncher but it's the over-the-top Britney Spears parodies written by Asche & Spencer that are the highlights. Performed by Lisa Marie Furth, the songs of the imaginary Melissa Cherry character (played by Sarah McElliot) are near perfect imitations of conventional pop tunes and it's a shame that no soundtrack is available.
Directed by Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire (but credited to James Kleiner), The Onion Movie was produced by David Zucker, director of the first two The Naked Gun movies and the last two Scary Movie sequels among many others. While it doesn't come close to the former it's certainly no worse than the latter. In this age of lazy comedy writing that's probably the most praise one give a film like this.