- I have been waiting to watch Movie 43 for the better part of 2013, because I wanted to be in the right mood to appreciate intentionally offensive comedy, believing that if I entered with a fitting attitude, I would be more likely to find the humor interesting.
- For a while I almost did. A few of the skits are occasionally funny, partially because the actors take the grotesquery somewhat seriously. Kieran Culkin and Emma Stone present a repulsively amusing scene of public dirty talk and insults. Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet give us a terrible first date, and Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber are fairly interesting as abusive parents.
- Even these scenes are not precisely good, though.
- And Movie 43 cannot maintain their limited energy.
- In the end, perhaps the movie’s biggest problem is that it isn’t all that offensive, doesn’t push boundaries all that far and isn’t the least bit clever. For most of its running time, it’s just stale.
- Not that that is Movie 43’s only flaw, of course. There are many more than that. It’s just that this flick is so bad at shocking its viewer, as it intends, that I don’t care enough to parse out the flaws, to analyze its condition.
- I will say this: breaking the fourth wall at the end, negating any usefulness of the Kinnear/Quaid framing strategy is some of the worst filmmaking I have ever seen.
- Movie 43 is, in other words, just terrible, so terrible that I find I don’t care about it. It isn’t even valuable enough to make me hate it. I nothing it. That might be a bigger insult than calling it putrid.
- Final Grade: F–
jjames reviews 
I’m taking that ‘F-‘ to mean “fair enough,” as this is the calmest review I’ve read on this movie so far. hah! this movie caused so much controversy and inspired so much vitriol in reviews the aftershock was hilarious in itself. the movie totally sucked, and i really sounded off on it myself.
My review is calm, but that’s because the movie didn’t make me care enough to enliven me. It didn’t repulse me and it didn’t stoke any passion one way or another. I just wanted it to end.
The F- suggests the movie fails in every way. It isn’t offensive. It doesn’t push boundaries. It’s just boring. But you’re right. I probably didn’t explain that very well in my attempt to move on from this drivel. I’ll add a couple of bullets so as to remedy that.
I’ll check out your review shortly.
lol oh no don’t change it ! 🙂 i was only kidding, i figured that meant it failed in every way. and you were exactly right — the movie almost did its job because it evoked annoyance and almost anger from me that I was having to sit thru what I was being presented. whereas you were left indifferent, which is the best way to be. i suppose I could have left the theater. . . . . .
Yeah. If I had not seen this stupidity instantly streaming on Netflix, a service for which I already otherwise pay, I might have been more annoyed too. 😉
And I didn’t really change it. I just added to it – I don’t like communicating unclearly. I teach the English language, so I better know how to use it properly. 🙂
Oh, this was so awful wasn’t it? I can’t believe I wasted my time haha. Glad you didn’t like it either. Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber did make me laugh though haha.
They did, at least once or twice. So did Culkin and Stone. I never laughed at Jackman and Winslet, but I was at least engaged (probably only because it was the first skit).
That is where the almost good ends though. This flick is just awful, akin to a bad episode of SNL, without the musical act, opening monologue or Weekend Update to give it some life.
Oh. And thanks for all of the comments!
Movie 43 wanted so bad to be the new Kentucky Fried Movie, but each sketch was a one note joke and the joke was established in the first two minutes. After that it had no where to go. If each one was released separately online. it would have been more tolerable for me.
It might have been, but even then it wouldn’t have been half so shocking as it thought it was. The skits were just so bad that they didn’t even matter to me.
F – haha. Glorious. Do you always films to the end, no matter how bad?
No. Not always. Usually.
I quit The Omega Code before it finished, and a few others here and there.
I’ve had it where I wanted to leave but who I was with didn’t 😦
I can see that happening. I once had it (Syriana) where I desperately wanted to leave, but swore my friend was really into it, judging by his posture and facial expressions, so didn’t say anything. Meanwhile, my friend was thinking the same exact thing, only in reverse.
So not only did we sit through the entire film, we sat through all of the end credits. For a movie I despise. 🙂
That still beats my effort. I went with my sis to see a spoof of 2001 when with her abroad and it was woeful. My scowls eventually persuaded my sis to leave with me, and with that the film finishes. My glorious exit. And I still can’t say I have left a film early haha.
That’s pretty funny.
When I saw Getaway in the theater I actually left a few minutes early. I also left Chuck and Larry, that Sandler garbage, though that time it was about twenty-five minutes into the movie. My wife and I just went into a different theater and saw Stardust instead.
Those might be the only theater experiences I didn’t see to the end.
That felt like a sitcom moment. The whole “This cannot get any worse kind of thing (gets worse).” I had a teacher who would stay to the end no matter how bad the film. Her logic was that she’d paid to see the film and wanted to get “value for money”.
I’m not a Sandler film. One of those actors I’ve never got. What made you want to see the film?
I didn’t. My wife did. For the life of me I can’t understand why – it (and he) so isn’t her style, something she realized pretty quickly after it started. She asked me to go find a movie, any movie, that was starting presently so we could see something else. Fortunately for us, be alternative wound up being quite good.
And that teacher’s logic is strong. Probably why I finished rubbish like Carrje.