I can’t recall an A-list comedy that works so hard at being relentlessly offensive as Movie 43. Hugh Jackman dons not adamantium claws, but neck testicles. Anna Faris radiates not cluelessness, but coprophilia. Terrence Howard discusses not how hard it is for a pimp, but how long be the black man’s dick.
For a slight majority of the running time, however, Movie 43 forgets to attach jokes to those shocks.
A compilation of shorts bearing no connection to one another other than earning that R rating and pushing it as close to NC-17 as it can get, the film was long-delayed and then ignored. For all its many faults, it’s still watchable.
After all, where else can you see so many Oscar winners and nominees do things that would leave older members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences aghast? Things like:
• Kate Winslet with soup-drenched nuts pressed against her face?
• Naomi Watts making a move on her teenaged son?
• and certainly taking the cake — or avocado, as the case may be — Halle Berry mixing guacamole with her right breast?
In delivering sketch after sketch, Movie 43 is structured like Kentucky Fried Movie or Amazon Women on the Women, with one big difference: Not counting three commercials and a superhero speed-dating bit (stolen by Jason Sudeikis’ horndog Batman), it’s not parodying anything. It’s merely presenting gags (sometimes literal) without context or purpose.
Yet I enjoyed experiencing it; there’s something fascinating about seeing such star-studded material fail, landing with a cruel thud before your eyes. The final sequence, directed by Super‘s James Gunn and involving a profane cartoon cat, makes any pain worth the temporary suffering. —Rod Lott