Miss March Review

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 03.13.2009

How does this new comedy stack up?

MISS MARCH



Directed By: Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore
Written By: Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore
Runtime: 90 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong crude and sexual content, nudity, pervasive language and some drug use
Official Site: Miss March Official Website

Eugene Bell - Zach Cregger
Tucker Cleigh - Trevor Moore
Cindi Whitehall - Raquel Alessi
Candace - Molly Stanton
Horse****.MPEG/Phil - Craig Robinson
Fireman Rick - Geoff Meed
Eugene's Doctor - Cedric Yarbough
Hugh Hefner - Himself
Quinton "Rampage" Jackson - Himself

The creators of The Whitest Kids You Know try their hand at a feature movie in Miss March. The pro-abstinence speaker, Eugene (Cregger), is going to the senior prom with his high school sweetheart, Cindi (Alessi). Despite Eugene's fears and general avoidance of pre-marital sex, he is still best friends with sex obsessed Tucker (Moore). Cindi has decided she wants to have sex with Eugene after the prom even though they preach outrageously exaggerated views on abstinence to elementary school kids. Eugene's nervous, so at the prom after-party Tucker has Eugene loosen up with some shots, but Eugene takes a wrong door and gets a nasty tumble for his mistake. The result of which leaves Eugene in a coma for four years until he is miraculously taken out of it by a baseball bat strike to the face by the still loyal to his bro Tucker. Eugene awakes to find that he has muscular atrophy from his coma as well as having insanely loose bowels; Eugene's father also abandoned him as well, and then the kicker is when Tucker reveals after receiving his latest issue subscription that Eugene's high school girlfriend Cindi is now the March Playboy playmate.

So what now? Tucker schemes to bring Eugene to the Playboy mansion at an anniversary party where all the playmates will be attending so Eugene can re-connect with Cindi and Tucker can finally live out his dream since he worships Playboy and Hugh Hefner. The plan is put ahead of schedule after Tucker has a genitalia biting, fork-stabbing incident with his epileptic girlfriend, Candace (Stanton). You see Tucker turned on a strobe light while Candace was going down on him, and Tucker being legally retarded didn't realize that strobe lights can cause an epileptic seizure.

The movie sort of tries to legitimize itself in a way in actually using the Playboy mansion and Hugh Hefner cameos as himself to provide Tucker with some guidance in true love. Miss March while it induces chuckles in select parts and gags doesn't really come together as a top-notch sex comedy. For starters, and think about this, since when did virginity and abstinence become something that should be frowned upon? For one thing, Eugene is pressured and coerced by Cindi (surprisingly enough) into having sex at the prom, but why is the idea of someone wanting to build a relationship with a significant other on something other than sex wrong? Why is that prudish? Why does that make a person a loser?

Alessi is totally hot, but she's not convincing as the sweet girl next door that's supposed to truly love Eugene. She almost reads her lines like she's looking at a cue card or teleprompters like the other Playmates that cameo in this flick.

Trevor Moore seems to really want to be Jim Carrey since he's ripped off Ace Ventura's wardrobe. Moore definitely has a sort of charisma and presence, but his character is just way too stupid, insane, and outrageous to be likable. Tucker insists on taking a Playmate's puppy to the bathroom. He carries the dog and is stopped by a hot woman that loves cute dogs, and the dog urinates in her champagne glass without her knowing. The girl downs the drinks and likes it more than un-tainted champagne. The girl steps aside for a bit, and then Tucker continues to try and get the dog to urinate even though it already did, so then he tries to feed the dog beer to get it to pee and is caught by the girl who drank the piss and the Playmate that stupidly lent him her dog. This all ends with Tucker tossing the dog over a balcony and bolting. OK, my problem with all this is that it works too hard for that gag. So they want a gag that will end with Tucker tossing the dog, OK. But the dog went to the bathroom. Why is Tucker still trying to get it to go the bathroom? Yes, Tucker is stupid, but he's not that stupid. The extra gross-out bit with the woman drinking the urine isn't worth the punchline where the dog gets tossed. And then we never find out what happens to the dog and the Playmate who is still at the mansion for the duration as far as we know.

Comedic veteran of film and The Office, Craig Robinson, rounds out the cast as a rapper friend of Tucker's who hit it big when Eugene was in a coma and helps the guys at first drive to LA, until he brags about "tagging" all the Playmates including Miss March. Robinson's rapper schtick is good, but Brandon Jackson already did it and did it much better in last year's Tropic Thunder as Alpa Chino.

Overall the movie has a couple decent performances and some funny stuff but it comes off as a DVD rental at best. This is more like a Eurotrip v.2.0 then the evolution of modern comedic classics like Old School. But if that's your speed, then enjoy.

The 411: Miss March is OK as a gross-out, male-oriented sex comedy, but overall it fails in achieving true comedic greatness. There's the basic easy to follow, high-concept plot, some decent gags like the psychotic, crazy firemen, but overall the movie sort of falls flat once they get to the Playboy mansion in the third act. Rampage didn't do nearly enough considering he was probably the funniest performer in the entire movie, but Moore and Cregger refuse to let Rampage have the chance in stealing the show. That's good for them since he probably would've upstaged them easily and make them look like comedic chumps.

Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]