While enjoying a fine, mainstream comedy, perhaps some of us have pondered, "What's the worst that could happen? How bad can a bad film really be?" For years, it seemed as if we could only conjecture from catastrophes like "Joe Dirt" and all of Rob Schneider's recent work. But friends, a real answer is finally upon us. May I present the 85-minute, patchwork-constructed concussion of a film, "Date Movie."

To say this movie has a plot would be a grave violation of modern civilization's most basic tenets of narrative storytelling. The thrown-together events center around Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan, "American Pie"), an overweight waitress searching for her prince charming. That prince is Grant Funkeyerdoder (say it quickly to yourself a couple times), played by little-known, little-loved newcomer Adam Campbell.

But before they can get married and live happily ever after, Julia and Grant decide to spoof a relentless onslaught of movies, good and bad, from the past few years such as "Meet the Parents," "The Wedding Planner" and "Hitch."

The spoofs themselves are handled with such sickening lack of taste and tact that their comic effect induces more sorrow than laughter (nonexistent while watching the film, unless you have the unconscionable misfortune of watching it in the company of fart-joke-mongering middle schoolers).

There are several parody sequences unceremoniously crammed in for no apparent reason other than to piggyback on the popularity of movies that didn't completely suck (recent hits such as "King Kong" and "Wedding Crashers"), and though no part of the film is even remotely coherent, these scenes especially will elicit sorrow from the poor viewer who decides to bring his brain along.

As outwardly awful as the film might be, it must have some redeeming qualities, right? Well, how about the scene involving beating up a homeless person? No? OK, how about the flatulent cat? The persistent goat-related sex jokes? The cat licking a corpse? The black man married to an Indian woman with Japanese and Greek offspring? You get the idea - there isn't a single valuable thought or idea in this film.

That said, some spoofs work better than others in this pile of cinematic refuse. The send-up of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" gets a smile, though it's completely worthless in context. The "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" parody near the beginning is benign enough (Opppaahhh!!!), and Jon Heder, still milking his "Napoleon Dynamite" credentials to the fullest extent, provides the only real laugh of the whole film - about 40 seconds in. Perhaps these little bits themselves deserve some recognition, but put together with the other 80 minutes of traumatic stupidity, the film deserves no real attention or respect.

So remember, the worst that could happen is very serious: "Date Movie" could be fatal to someone even remotely humanoid. It represents the most rank style of filmmaking imaginable. This is, without question, the worst film in years.

Date Movie
At the Showcase and Quality 16
20th Century Fox

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars