5.6 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
Roving reporter Cindy Campbell sets out to find a hard news story in the middle of television sweeps. She soon uncovers an outrageous onslaught of globe-threatening developments including alien invaders, killer videotapes, freaky crop circles, prophecies of The One, eerie-eyed children, ambitious white rappers and even a run-in with Michael Jackson. Faced with conspiracies of massive proportions, and a crew of very strange people following her around, Cindy must fight to stop evil from taking over the world yet again.
Starring: Anna Faris, Anthony Anderson, Leslie Nielsen, Camryn Manheim, Simon RexComedy | 100% |
Horror | 78% |
Teen | 41% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
What a difference new writers and a director can make. The first two Scary Movie outings were of course Wayans Brothers offerings, with all that that implies. The films were often undeniably funny, but they were also slipshod, overly juvenile and obsessed with sex and other adolescent issues. Of course it’s hard to completely remove a parody from sexual and adolescent territory, so don’t go into Scary Movie 3 (or in this case the slightly more sexual and adolescent unrated Scary Movie 3.5) thinking that those elements have completely disappeared, for they most certainly have not. But with co-writers Craig Mazin and Pat Proft bringing their innate silliness to the project, and with David Zucker at the helm (and also contributing gags left and right, at least according to the commentary), Scary Movie 3 is a decidedly more consistent enterprise than either of its predecessors, and it even manages something akin to actual “smart” comedy along the way. Focusing mostly on skewering The Ring and Signs, with a hodgepodge of other cultural references zinging by with the speed of sound, Scary Movie 3 very artfully blends elements of its two main filmic “victims” together, while working in a number of unexpected, but often very funny, other zingers that involve everything from 8 Mile to The Matrix to The Others to Zucker’s own Naked Gun series. One completely unintentional piece of humor, especially seen now with the aid of some cultural zeitgeist hindsight, is the spectacle of seeing one of today’s most reviled Hollywood celebrities (Charlie Sheen) playing a parody version of a role initiated by one of yesterday’s most reviled Hollywood celebrities (Mel Gibson in Signs). That may add a bit to the film’s cachet for certain cynical types, but the fact is Scary Movie 3 manages to easily outdistance either Scary Movie or Scary Movie 2 in outright lunacy and genuine heartfelt and often gutbusting laughs.
Scary Movie 3 is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Despite coming just a couple of years after Scary Movie 2, this outing looks considerably better in high definition than does its predecessor. Colors are bolder and better saturated, and fine detail is manifestly more apparent. Best of all, black levels are very solid, and shadow detail is excellent in almost all scenes. There are a couple of uses of stock footage (the establishing shots of the White House being notable examples) where the image quality is decidedly more degraded, but overall this is a very sharp and appealing presentation on Blu-ray that should easily satisfy the film's fans.
As with Scary Movie 2, Scary Movie 3.5 features an incredibly boisterous lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that, like its predecessor, features a thumping wild ride of low frequencies courtesy in this case of its 8 Mile spoof. The film features a lot of sound effects dotting the soundfield, and fidelity is strong throughout all frequency ranges, with excellent dynamic range. Surround channels are used decently, if actually a bit less consistently than in Scary Movie 2, though several key sequences do offer some great immersion, including the funny climax where the Signs and The Ring plotlines intersect in the cellar of the Logan farmhouse. Dialogue is clear and crisp and very well mixed with the effects and occasional score cues.
Well, it may not be in genius territory, but compared to its two predecessors at least, Scary Movie 3 is decidedly smart comedy, filled with that patented Zucker pizzazz that made films like Airplane! and Naked Gun so much fun. The cultural references are fast and freewheeling and you never know quite what's going to be skewered next, which is part of the fun. Faris and crew are once again very funny and the writing is surprisingly sharp, rather artfully blending Signs and The Ring as well as virtually every other film you can mention. With good image and audio quality and a full array of supplemental material, this new Blu-ray comes Recommended.
Unrated & Uncensored
2006
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1995
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2017
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