Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. Someone’s not happy. This is a pretty scathing review. I’m curious to know if this one’s got an American distributor/and or release date yet. It sounds like at least one viewer isn’t buying into any hype about this one at all:
Hey Harry, Last night I caught a preview of “I Want Candy” in Birmingham, UK that is being released this Friday over here. This movie is being fairly heavily advertised over here, making the most of Carmen Electra’s loveliness to push the film. Also being heavily used is the phrase “The British American Pie”. In a nutshell these claims are bollocks. The film is bollocks. Yet interestingly a film that is bollocks, and is about (to some extent) bollocks, yet it lacks to the bollocks to be anything other than the worst film, British or otherwise that I have ever had the misfortune to endure. The plot is as follows. The two main leads (whose names I refuse to look up on the IMDB because they have already wasted enough of my time) are aspiring filmmakers and studying film at Leatherhead Uni. Now whilst Leatherhead is a genuine place in the UK, I’m not sure if that is supposed to be a play on the word "head" and a joke in itself. (Yes. That is how desperate I am being to try and find something like humour in the film) These two lads start out with a scheme to make money for their big production making “Funeral Videos, because everyone already does wedding videos.” We then see them issued with their third year final project. Mackenzie Crook (The Office, POTC) plays their tutor in a entirely laugh free manner. He seems to have walked into a chronic cliché of what a film teacher should be. How disappointing? But I suppose he and Jimmy Carr (who crops up later) have a mortgage to pay like the rest of us. Back to the plot, the two leads are gutted to find that their brief has been changed from a feature film to a two minute short. Eeek!! What are the boys to do?? Thankfully they don’t give up and after a bit of light hassling from their barmaid buddy they start tramping around Soho trying to blag their way into various film production offices. Cue some more laugh free minutes where every tired and obvious joke is explored before they accidentally wander into the offices of an evil porn producer. He gives them a couple of minutes to pitch their movie and soon they have promised to deliver a full porn feature film starring the hottest slut in the business Candy Fiveways (First pet name + Street where you grew up – Hahahahahahahaha! ). Obviously this is pap, and our smooth talking producer spunks the money on clothes and aftershave (spaz). Meanwhile after some longwinded scenes and some very crap audition scenes they meet Candy (Carmen Electra) at a book signing and give her the script to their movie. Cue a scene in the pub and the phone rings. . . . whoa its Candy, the hottest ass in porn today and for some unknown reason she wants to emerge from her self-imposed moratorium on porn to do this creepy fuckers film. Yeah. OK then . . . The then has various predictable “comedy hi-jinks” whilst filming the movie (finding mum’s dildo, pubes in the butter, mom and dad coming home early for a endless sex marathon, plus one mildly amusing bit) until the film is done and gets stolen back by the evil gangster porn producer. Jump to one year later and all relationships have soured, but the film is nominated for a Golden Cock (note to the writers. Using the word “Cock” over and over and over is not a substitute for jokes. You may use it once for a cheap giggle, but no more). The film then turns into a caper movie for about 7mins as everyone suddenly becomes mates again and rushes to the ceremony just in time to claim the award back from the evil porn producer. This is enough for Candy to swop some spit with the drippy Director and live happily ever after. 80 laugh free minutes later and you will agree with me that it was utter bollocks. This film desperately tries to be its own thing, except all I can see is the ghost of several other films that have done EVERYTHING here but much smarter, funnier, professionally, slicker and most importantly these other teen comedies are all entertaining on some level. The most obvious of these is the relationship between the two male leads that just wants to desperately be Ferris and Cameron. The charming wise ass with a heart and his introverted friend who needs to learn how to have fun. Now for me Ferris walked a very fine line anyway, because Matthew Broderick and John Hughes brings something to that role that actually lets you care for Ferris who in lesser hands would be a despicable cocky twat. Now the Ferris-Clone here is not quite despicable but he is a twat. A largely, unsympathetic twat with no charisma, charm to engage the audience. When he lets his mates down, you want him to get decked. When he’s being threatened by the greasy porn producer, you want him to get decked. This is not an ideal when this kid is the front and centre of your film. His Cameron-alike mate is just as much of a drip. Fuck him in his whiny ear. For a film maker he seems not to know how to simply turn off a television. Seeing as a whole set piece joke revolves around him, a third year film student being unable to turn off a TV or DVD player this makes you think the guy must be just fucking dense. If after three years of film theory he cannot work a fucking TV then the British education system needs to take a serious look at itself. Also when shooting a film on DV there is no need for a clapper board, at all. I appreciate this is probably a bit of filmic shorthand, but from what little I know about Digital Filmmaking the guy looks even less like he deserves to succeed in his filmic career. That this tit ends up incredulously winning the heart of Carmen Electra’s porn star is hilarious for all the wrong reasons. There is a five minute sequence in a pub after the film is completed where Carmen Electra jumps on Fake-Cameron and Fake-Ferris starts tonsil tennis with his female mate. WHY THE HELL HAS THIS HAPPENED?? For no reason at all is the chuffing answer. Stupid unnecessary romance that suddenly has the audience thinking “What the fuck?” Thankfully as quickly as that has come out of the blue, evil greasy gangster/porn producer shows up steals the movie and ruins the random lovefest. In the process the boys and girls all fall out (By this stage Electra seems to have worked out that the film is utter pap and seems to be taking the piss with her performance here – shocking is the word – but then maybe she is trying her best. Who knows?) and then just as suddenly the Beatles are no more. Again I ask “What the fuck?”. In about five minutes things have just taken massive jumps in logic and narrative that is bizarre and tonally all over the frickin place! I think the over arching irony with this sad sorry mess is that it pokes fun at student/amateur film-making, however the film itself is sloppy amateur affair. This is perhaps best evoked when at 45mins Miss Electra shows her once beautiful mush in a slo-mo entrance. Now fuck knows what the filmmakers were going for but she looks ropey. Carmen Electra looks odd, not beautiful. She then slinks her way up to the lads’ house and stands to have a conversation with Fake-Ferris. All the while the real camera crew is visible in a reflection of the front door to the house. Filmmaking Rule Number One – Don’t appear in your own movie. Sloppy, amateurish, pathetic and ultimately boring, this truly is sub-DTV stuff folks. Whilst it is (sadly) British, it definitely isn’t comedy. With so much excellent comedy talent in the UK right now, is it too much to expect that shite like this doesn’t even get off the ground? If you feel free to post this warning to other UK and global filmgoers, the name is Groggy. PS - For all the lads out there - there no titties, no sex, no ass, no nothing. The Carry On films offer more opportunities for a giggle and a crafty/desperate stroke.
