The Darwin Awards DVD

The Darwin Awards
Joseph Fiennes, Winona Ryder, a bunch of cameos
Directed (yeah, right) by Finn Taylor
20th Century Fox 2007
Too long, way too long.

The Darwin Awards the movie could have been a decent and dark comedy if somebody had decided to actually make a movie.

Instead, you get a pseudo documentary with lead actors who have no clue what to do, no real story, a gimmick that very quickly gets tiring, and a mess.

Director, to be generous, Finn Taylor, even tries to sneak in some romantic comedy elements to make The Darwin Awards DVD watchable. He fails at this as badly as he fails at everything else.

The only interest in the Darwin Awards DVD is to play spot the cameo until you get tired of it.

To save everybody some painful viewing time, cameos feature the Mythbusters guys, Lukas Haas, Juliette Lewis and her right breast, Julianna Marguilies, Chris Penn, great thespian David Arquette, Metallica for the Metallica related Darwin Awards story, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and an actor who must have seen the final cut before anyone else so he called himself John Doe.

Fans of the Darwin Awards should stick with the books as this waste of DVD shelf space is a stapled  pasted collaged Scotch taped together collection of reenactments of past winners’ timely departures from this mortal coil.

The movie is boxed in by a so-called investigation by a former SFPD profiler turned insurance company investigator, Joseph Fiennes, who teams up with a tough cookie partner -we know she is a tough cookie because she swears a lot-played by Winona Ryder, to investigate weird insurance claims.

This will supposedly help build a profile insurance companies will be able to use to deny policies to future Darwin Award winners. It is also supposed to give some life and form to this disaster.

Some of the reenactments, like the guy with the jet engine strapped to his Chevy for example (look for the Mythbuster guys in a cameo), are interesting, while others, like the guy who gets pancaked by a soft drink machine, scream low budget single location and someone forgot to direct the actors to make sure they do not look like gerbils lost in a maze.

How bad is The Darwin Awards?

Well, this movie, which only future award winners will find interesting, was made in 2006 and there is not a single instance of product placement.

I think Raid should have sponsored The Darwin Awards movie since it arrived dead in the clamshell box.

If there was a Darwin Award for movies, this DVD would be the all-category winner.

 

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