Date Movie: So unfunny, it's Scary!

The rest of the time, judging from those awkward silences during a weekend public screening - the film wasn't screened in advance for critics - many viewers seemed to be preoccupied wondering where those other four writers were when they needed them. Young male viewers who were weaned on the "Scary Movie" installments and were in the market for some raunchy fun also likely will be let down by the tamer PG-13 rating, meaning the 20th Century Fox release's date with DVD likely will come sooner rather than later. Screenwriters Aaron Seltzer (who also gets the official Directors Guild of America credit) and Jason Friedberg refer mainly to the plot lines of "My Best Friend's Wedding," "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and "Meet the Parents/Fockers" as their point of satirical departure for a setup involving the Ugly Duckling makeover of one Julia Jones, a Greek Indian African-American Jew (good sport Alyson Hannigan) who sheds her extreme fat suit and catches the eye of eligible bachelor Grant Funkyerdoder (British import Adam Campbell).

Along the way, they also cast their rather ungainly net around the likes of "The Wedding Planner," "Wedding Crashers," "Pretty Woman" and "When Harry Met Sally ...," not to mention such chick-flick classics as "Kill Bill" and "Napoleon Dynamite."

As a result, even the usually dependable Fred Willard finds himself fighting a losing comic battle here doing his impression of Dustin Hoffman's Bernie Focker, and while the always reliable Jennifer Coolidge fares better with her zany Barbra Streisand imitation, this limp lampoon ends up exhibiting all the satirical accuracy of a wet noodle being launched from a Jell-O mold.