Given the 25 years it took brothers Marlon and Shawn Wayans to reclaim control of their “Scary Movie” franchise with the new, “rebooquel”-titled “Scary Movie” — the sixth overall film in the series — one would think the siblings had enough time to scare up some decent jokes, too. A quarter of a century is a long time, after all. And yet, the new “Scary Movie” is stuck somewhere between then and now, with one foot in the early-millennial absurdism that spawned the series’ most beloved gags, and the other planted way too firmly in quote-unquote edgy humor.
Early marketing for the film teased a movie in which “there were no safe spaces,” where “every line would be crossed.” (Never mind that a hacky, low-hanging joke about they/them pronouns, like the one in the film’s first trailer, is a line that’s been crossed so many times the chalk has faded.) “Scary Movie” would, apparently, be a return to the button-pushing, tasteless humor that defined a generation but was now outmoded by wokeness. Hear that, snowflakes? The Wayans brothers are coming for your triggers. 2016 is all about real comedy. Save your liberal crap for “The Mindy Project”!
