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Avg. Critic Score: 17 out of 100 Overwhelming dislike Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
14 Iffy for 14+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 67
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    Epic Movie is just timely enough to conclude with a wink and a nod to Borat. I only wish that it had been bold enough to go Borat on HIM. Read full review

  • 40
    Los Angeles Times |

    The real problem with Epic Movie is that while it does a decent job imitating films, it never bothers to make fun of or have fun with them, which is what Friedberg and Seltzer did so well with "Scary Movie." Read full review

  • 40
    The New York Times | A.O. Scott

    The humor is coarse and occasionally funny. The archly bombastic score, by Edward Sheamur, is the only thing you might call witty. But happily, Jennifer Coolidge and Fred Willard show up, as the White Bitch and Aslo the Lion, to add some easy, demented class. Read full review

  • 30
    Variety | Ronnie Scheib

    If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, big studio Hollywood hitmakers should consider themselves lauded to the max in Jason Friedberg and Aaron Selzer's Epic Movie, the latest (and epically unfunny) entry in the movie parody franchise. Read full review

  • 25
    New York Daily News | Elizabeth Weitzman

    Still, if it gets little else right, at least Epic Movie is accurately titled: It may be only 86 minutes long, but it feels as if it lasts forever. Read full review

  • 20
    L.A. Weekly |

    By the time this dud drops on NetFlix, it'll be as obsolete as a Chia pet jokebook. Read full review

  • 20
    The Hollywood Reporter | Michael Rechtshaffen

    A monumentally unfunny time-waster. Read full review

  • 12
    Boston Globe | Wesley Morris

    The willful sloppiness and retrograde gags make Epic Movie, which was not shown to critics, an inevitable byproduct of our Internet video era. It seems downloaded and projected onto the screen, a failing online-film-school project paid for and put out by a Hollywood movie studio. That said, very little on YouTube is this unentertaining. Read full review

  • 0
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    Only a complete idiot could think Epic Movie is remotely funny. Read full review

  • 0
    Austin Chronicle |

    I've rarely seen a movie as hostile as this one, both to its audience and to its protagonists, and I don't think I realized before just how mean-spirited comedy can get (and I was raised on the Three Stooges). Read full review

View more reviews for Epic Movie on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 14+ Raunchy blockbuster spoof is over the top, dumb.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that plenty of teens will want to see this raunchy parody from the folks behind Date Movie. It frequently relies on sexual references and body functions for punchlines (though the old standby of good, clean, bopped-on-the-head slapstick gets a workout, too). Lots of crotch and breast gags; plenty of innuendo and big, cartoon-style violence. Some language (mostly "s--t" and "Goddamn"). While the main movie being spoofed is The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, there aren't any jokes based on the religious allegory underlying C.S. Lewis' plot. References to R-rated films like Snakes on a Plane and Borat may pique young viewers' curiosity to see them.
  • Families can talk about the movie's crazy, all-out style of parody. Does any of it work, and do you think anyone will find any of it funny decades from now, when half of the references will have been forgotten? Compare this film to other spoofs -- like Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein and Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog -- in which the comedians seem to have great understanding and affection for what they're spoofing. Is there any of that here?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: It's great to see a racially diverse cast of leads, though it's also a joke at the same time (they're all secretly brothers and sisters). Otherwise, not much depth in the characters or storyline at all, though some of the personal-growth lessons from Chronicles of Narnia are present in an incidental way.
What to watch for
  • violence false3 Violence: Bloodless, cartoon-style violence, with characters dismembered, smashed, pierced with arrows, shot, decapitated, stabbed, eviscerated, and de-tongued, as well as punched and kicked (in the groin, usually), though they rise up again unscathed.
  • sex false3 Sex: Breast and crotch gags in profusion. Numerous shots of bikini-clad women, including a takeoff on Mystique from the X-Men movies (a bosomy mutant mainly clad in blue body paint and glued-on scales). She has sex (non-explicitly) with one of the heroes. Other characters shown in bed together (including four at once, male and female). Repeated jokes by fantasy figures (fauns and lion-men) about how their fathers "boinked" animals, resulting in their birth. The Witch enchants a victim by showing him her breasts (her back to us). Numerous double-entendres, suggestive character names, and suggestions of Willy Wonka's perversity.
  • language false3 Language: Many uses of "s--t," "Goddamn" several times (mostly said by a Samuel L. Jackson impersonator in place of "f--k"), and "bitch" a lot.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Many specific movies, TV shows, and celebrities are spoofed.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Repeated jokes about drinking, with bottles of liquor magically replacing the Turkish delight from Chronicles of Narnia. Characters, even the sober and sensible one, get utterly drunk in a pre-battle party.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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Dave White

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… piece of crap. Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

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