Views & Reviews From Writer Steve Miller
Formerly Reviews and Stuff at Rotten Tomatoes, 2005 - 2009.

Currently Showing at Cinema Steve

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Lots of possibilities wasted by lack of focus

Death to the Supermodels (2005)
Starring: Jaime Pressly, Brooke Burns, Matt Winston, Diane Delano, and Kimberly Davies
Director: Joel Silverman
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

When Tiffany (Pressly) the ever-perky and supermodel-wannabe editor of "Merle Magazine" (favorite periodical of transvestites and overweight housewives throughout America) is given the green-light by her boss (Delano) to arrange the ultimate swimsuit issue featuring the world's top five supermodels and the worlds greatest pair of fashion photographers, it's like her fondest dreams have come to life. However, when they all arrive on the isolated tropical island for the shoot, the dream starts to crumble, no matter how hard Tiffany tries to hang onto it. The models are simply too dumb and too bitchy to be around, the photographers too tempremental... and, to add insult to injury, a mysterious killer starts whacking the models one by one, Will Tiffany die with her dream?


"Death to the Supermodels" is bizarre little comedy that keeps zig-zagging back and forth across the middle ground between a dark comedy and a zany bit of nuttiness in the vein of a Zucker/Abrams/Zucker film. Unfortunately, the odd approach does not make for a solid comedy. The nutty characters of the supermodels, the "asexual" photographers, and the never-say-die optimism of Tiffany are humorous enough to keep the viewer watching, but the material the actors have to work with just isn't focused enough to make the movie truly worthwhile. (The actors all do fine jobs, by the way. Everyone's performance are right for this kind of comedy--with Pressly leading the pack at her cartoon-character-come-to-life best).

This is one of those movies that could have been so much better if the filmmakers had spent a little more time defining the type of comedy they wanted to make. It proves that comedies remain among the hardest kind of movies to make. It might be worth catching if it comes around on late-night cable, but it's not worth going out of your way for.

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