Miss March: Review By B. Alan Orange

Miss March offers a peculiar outing. I didn’t necessarily like any part of the film while watching it. It never made me laugh. Though after the fact, I felt compelled to see it again. I don’t know the Whitest Kids, nor do I know where they secured the money to finance this cheap looking comedy. Its never guffaw inducing; let alone worth a chuckle. It’s annoying, and amateurish. And for a movie involving Playboy, dare I say it’s a little too wholesome. No wonder they’re known as the Whitest Kids, this is a slice of Wonderbread. It offers little nutritional value. Its taste isn’t something your tongue screams for. But damn if you aren’t compelled to pick it up in the store anyway. And wrapped it around your meat. I know what you’re thinking. How can I call a film that notches up the raunch meter with numerous references to male genitalia and a trip to the world famous grotto “wholesome”? Well, it just feels innocent. And its jokes are about as old as 1984. Even though it’s been slapped with a hearty R rating, this could play on afternoon television, and I doubt most eight year olds or their parents would be appalled.

Despite its vast shortcomings as a film, Miss March is impeccably likeable. It’s a lot like 2007’s Hot Rod in that nature. It’s certainly a bad experience, but you can’t help but be won over by its rudimentary timing. The script is atrocious, but the personable and harmless personas of its creators Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, who also co-directed the project, go a long way in making this a tolerable, dare I say worthwhile, endeavor. They’re the type of easygoing guys you’d want to hang out with at a keg party. The first dudes you turn to in a crowded room. They have a confident magnetism that overshadows the fact that they’ve made a true stinker. It’s a bad comedy; there is no doubt about that. But you find yourself wanting to like it because of Zach and Trevor. And that says a lot about them as comedians.

This feels like a rushed job. Like they threw something together very quickly to gain a little outside composure. And exposure. It was a smart move on their part. They went the Adam Sandler route instead of waiting for something good to fall into their laps, and I can admire that. Miss March is as good as Billy Madison, and that’s considered a frat daddy classic now. The narrative here reads like two guys bouncing ideas off each other in the back room of some greasy spoon while they’re on a break from scrubbing dishes. It’s what makes them laugh. Not necessarily what makes you or I laugh. The material is selfish and pointed in that manner. Here’s two guys attempting to amuse themselves. They don’t care if you’re in on the joke or not. It’s self-serving to a point; a brand of humor that has grown and flourished because of networking sites like Youtube and Funny or Die. There’s no longer a need for this type of comedy to serve the gen pop audience. So it’s weird that it caters to the lowest common denominator. And frustrating in the way it relies on the repetitive spin-cycle deconstruction of its own self. If you hear the name Horsedick.MPEG once during its hour and forty minute run, you hear it a million times. Zach and Trevor are intent on beating you over the head and into submission. By the end, it eventually works. How else to explain my compulsion to seek it out and experience its shameful ways again?

Miss March is a generic road trip movie served in a black and white labeled can. It never tries to be more than that. The screenplay hits every note on time and in a hurry, never wasting a moment in setting up the next lame joke. Its Sex Drive and Fanboys all over again, except it seems less eager to make you enjoy the worn-through routine. The three-act beat structure is shuffled and spun into something resembling a comedy, even if it is a little loose. There’s the set up; the reason why these two douchers are on the road. Zach and Trevor are at a high school party, and despite the fact that Zach and his girlfriend conduct elementary abstinence courses, they are about to get it on. We’re talking hot and hardcore f*cking. He never reaches the bedroom though, as he gets drunk and falls down the staircase in the attic. A tool chest hits him in the head, sending him into a four-year coma. He awakens to discover his very chaste sweetheart is now a Playboy centerfold. So he sets out with his friend to win her back.

Yawn. There’s the wacky over night stay in a sleazy hotel. The car breaks down. They hitch a ride. A bunch of angry fireman are chasing them. All that’s missing is a musical montage set in a sunglass hut. Maybe I nodded off during that part. The film culminates during a party at the Playboy Mansion. The Whitest kids sneak in and proceed to make things right. If anything positive can be said about this exercise in “Come on, Gang! Let’s Make a Movie”, it’s that Zach and Trevor actually get a fairly decent scene out of Hugh Hefner. We know its coming. It’s expected at this point. But he seems a little more alive and natural here than he did in The House Bunny. They pull a funny and integral monologue out of his mummified mouth. The vibe at the Playboy mansion seems off and slightly skewed. Pieces of it don’t quite fit the rest of the film as a whole, but looking at the production notes, that makes sense. The end was shot nearly a year after Miss March was completed. The main push of the story used to revolve around a fictitious magazine, and all of the magazine covers have since been CGI’d in to include that iconic rabbit head. Nice job. I barely noticed.

Mr. Hefner isn’t the only Grotto regular that makes an appearance. Playboy Playmate of the Year 2006 Sara Jean Underwood has a nice cameo, even if it does feel shoehorned in at the last possible moment. Somehow The Whitest Kids managed to secure funnyman Craig Robinson in a healthy supporting role, which was filmed before his sudden fame-making turn in Zack and Miri Make a Porno (he stole the “Star War” line from Lucille Bluth). He plays rap star Horsedick.MPEG, and he’s only as funny as the script allows him to be. Again, that means he’s not very funny. But his presence is a welcome one, and he takes your mind off the awfulness lingering around his upper torso. It’s really a testament to the prowess of all involved that their stately personas elevate and push this dead dick material up and off the ground. Anyone else, even Adam Sandler, would have drowned in this unserviceable dreck.

The Whitest Kids? Whoop-doo! Craig Robinson? Whoop-doo! Sara Jean Underwood? Whoop-doo! Yes, they are enough to make me recommend this soon to be a college dorm room classic. The script, though, gets a major Boo! And a “F*ck You!” too!

(All of B. Alan Orange’s reviews are based on the Boo! or Whoop-doo! evaluation system.)