The House Bunny

The House Bunny (Fred Wolf, 2008) - D+

In theory I could have rolled with the amiably cartoonish tone (a villain named Mrs. Hagstrom; a brothel soup joke; "I've got to meet that fucking bird!"), but the thing is so sloppy that rolling proved hard. Why is it that movies about misfits who try to be popular but learn it's okay to be misfits always make the misfits horrid caricatures instead of the types of people it's actually okay to be? (See also Sydney White.) Here I guess the message is a bit different since the characters learn moderation -- being neither the abominations they were at the beginning of the film nor the bimbos the title Playmate tried to make them (you can be beautiful AND brainy, see?) -- but that doesn't make the movie any less aggressively dumb; what purpose is served by making the "loser sorority" consist of a trailer park stereotype, a girl with a full-body brace, etc.? And come on, guys: if you're going to treat the hundred bullshit conflicts you introduce (Scheming Playboy Bunny! Unmailed envelopes! Realization that the Zetas have become what they hated!) so perfunctorily, why even bother? There are enough laughs to make it bearable (Anna Faris is very funny, and I really liked one joke in the climax), but I got the sense that the film's supposedly endearing gee-whiz stupidity wasn't an affectation. And how absurd to even pretend that the adorable Emma Stone is an unattractive outcast.