Miss March - Worst movie.

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I became intrigued by the movie "Miss March" when I saw that it had an overall score of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, something only a true disaster could attain. The first clip of a review I read was scathing. "Cregger and Moore not only star in "Miss March," they wrote and directed it too, which seems like a selfless act akin to throwing yourself on a live grenade, protecting any innocent careers around you from getting hit by flying shrapnel," which made me even more interested. A teen sex comedy about a guy waking up from a 4 year coma to go on a cross country mission to win back his high school sweetheart that became a Playboy model in the meantime sounds pretty embarrassingly awful, and I wanted to hear A.O. Scott or Manohla tear it apart. But instead I got this disappointing piece by Rachel Saltz, the Times' resident Bollywood expert who apparently doesn't have the bloodthirst of her fellow critics. She lets this one off easy.

Her lede is pretty meh as a reductive plot summary, but the overhyphenated laundry list has a note of exasperation and it seems like she's ready to rant about how bad this movie is in the next paragraph. Psych. Unlike any of the other caustic reviews I've read, she actually tries to defend the comic sensibilities of its creators. But her praise is so vague and unsupported that I'm left feeling like she didn't really know what to say. Just read this:

"Mr. Cregger and Mr. Moore understand the ABC’s of comic opposites and comedy plotting. After Eugene wakes from his coma, Tucker springs him from the hospital for a road trip. Destination: the Playboy Mansion. And the ending neatly ties up all the plotlines."

Don't get me wrong, I don't consider myself a great critic and don't think I would've done any better under whatever the insane deadlines are at the NYT, but I feel like this is comparatively pretty mediocre, if not bad, compared to a lot of the other movie reviews we've read this quarter. "The ending neatly ties up all the plotlines?" That sounds like something I would have tried to write in my review of Gran Torino when I didn't know what the hell else to put but needed words. And how is the plot description line supposed to be evidence for the two guys understanding "the ABC's of comic opposites and comedy plotting"? What are the ABC's of comedy plotting anyway? Care to give an example? I feel like this says nothing.

The "but" comes at the beginning of the 4th paragraph, and it's as understated as the rest of the review: The problem with “Miss March” is that it isn’t very funny." Straight to the point, yes, but now you've got me ready for some panning. But she proceeds to riddle off a list of random disparate elements, then accuse the movie of being "tame". And when you're going to do the whole, "the guy behind me in the theater said something so hilariously insightful it sums up the movie and my opinion so perfectly that I'll use his quote as a conclusion" thing, the quote better be actually good.

The whole time I was just waiting for her to slay this thing and she did nothing but caress it gently then poke the air around it. I clearly need to step away from this.