he third installment of the Scary Movie franchise finds hapless Cindy Campbell (Faris) in the middle of another horrific scenario based on several popular films. This time, Cindy must find the source of a videotape that kills anyone who watches it seven days later (a la The Ring), while aliens threaten to invade the planet via crop-circle warnings similar to the ones in Signs.
Cindy learns of the deadly tape from her friend Brenda (Hall), another veteran of the first two films, who has now become a schoolteacher. While picking up her nephew from Brenda's class, Cindy meets George Logan (Rex), a farmer turned rapper who invites her to see him perform in a rap-off scene reminiscent of 8 Mile. It turns out that George's brother Tom (Sheen) is the owner of the cornfield with the mysterious crop circles.
Searching for the answers behind the mysterious deaths linked to the tape, Cindy visits the Oracle (Queen Latifah). With the Oracle's help, Cindy uses the images on the tape to uncover a long-buried tragedy that seems to have taken place at the Logan farm. She returns there to investigate, only to find that the alien invasion has already begun.
Meanwhile, at the White House, the President (Nielsen) has been informed of the attack. He heads to the farm, where the connection between the aliens and the videotape is finally revealed. But can the ultimate evil be overcome in time to save the Earth?
A comic veteran swings and misses
Taking over the reigns from the Wayans brothers, who worked on both previous Scary Movie films, David Zucker (Airplane!, The Naked Gun) leaves his unmistakable mark on the franchise, such as it is. Fans of the first Scary Movie may find that the third film has lost the outrageousness that made it edgy and hip. Still, it's at least watchable, which is more than can be said for Scary Movie 2.
Despite its reduction in rating from R to PG-13, Scary Movie 3 skews slightly older than its predecessors. Gone are the gross-out jokes and drug-related humor the first two films relied upon. Instead, there is a tonal shift toward more sight gags (like the tinfoil hats from Signs becoming giant Hershey's kisses), physical comedy and Leslie Neilsen's standard, clueless authority figure shtick.
Though no one plays the serious buffoon better than Neilsen, his storyline feels unnecessarily tacked on to an already complicated plot. His role could have been reduced to a cameo at the end of the film without changing the story at all. There are some actual cameos that are mildly amusing, including one for fans of American Idol, which shows that the filmmakers haven't completely neglected their core teenage audience. One particularly effective parody is in the opening scene, in which Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy reenact the opening of The Ring (though Anderson's breasts are practically another special effect).
While the main films chosen to parody are overly serious in the execution of an inherently ridiculous premise, which makes them excellent targets, they aren't very well integrated into one cohesive story. The connection drawn between them comes late in the film, and is a very poor payoff for an hour and a half worth of buildup. Like Rex's character George, the filmmakers' objective is to "swing away" at every possible laugh. Some connect, but most miss the ball entirely.
