Blu-Ray Review: Awful ‘Miss March’ Gives Sex Comedies a Bad Name

CHICAGO – The cover for the Blu-Ray release of “Miss March” (also on DVD) features the title character (Raquel Alessi) of the raunchy comedy staring open-mouthed, clearly a little shocked at what she’s just seen. She even looks a little angry. One can assume that she has just watched the movie on the disc inside and is planning to fire her agent, for comedies don’t get much worse than the dismal, awful, unfunny “Miss March”.

Blu-Ray Rating: 1.0/5.0

After “American Pie” shocked Hollywood by out-performing all expectations, there was a wave of “virgin sex comedies” that followed. Years from now, film historians will be surprised to learn that “Miss March” wasn’t a part of that wave and actually came along years later. It feels like a relic of a trend that has pretty much been relegated to straight-to-DVD comedies for the last several years. And it’s not even as good as most of those.

Miss March was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on July 28th, 2009.
Photo credit: Fox Home Video

The question that keeps nagging me about “Miss March” is the possibility that it’s supposed to be bad. The two writer/director/stars - Trevor Moore & Zach Cregger - have displayed comic ingenuity on the often-good “The Whitest Kids U’Know” (the IFC sketch show). It makes a viewer wonder if they’re not spoofing bad teen sex comedies with “Miss March”. Then again, does it really matter? If a comedy isn’t funny, does the intention make a difference?

Miss March was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on July 28th, 2009. Photo credit: Fox Home Video

Cregger and Moore play Eugene and Tucker. Eugene is the nice guy, the virgin who preaches abstinence to kids. Tucker is the pervert, the jerk who can’t stop talking about “banging”. On prom night, Eugene decides that he’ll finally sleep with his girlfriend. He takes a bit too much liquid courage and falls down a flight of stairs, ending up in a coma for four years. When he wakes up, he discovers that his girlfriend is the Playmate in the March issue of Playboy. Time for a cross-country journey to win back the heart of his angel turned centerfold. The great Craig Robinson tags along as a rapper named “Horsedick.MPEG” whose biggest hit is “I’ma F**k a White Bitch”.

The plot recap actually sounds relatively promising. Hot playmates, rap spoofs, two talented young actors crossing the country. But Cregger and Moore don’t know the difference between funny and gross. Do you find drinking dog piss funny? How about when people defecate on the floor? Does a bit about an epileptic, a strobe light, and a blowjob sound like comedy gold to you? “Miss March” is far-too-juvenile to be humorous. It’s one of the least funny films in a long, long time - almost so much so that I want to recommend it just so you can see how bad a comedy can truly be. But that would just be mean.

Not only is “Miss March” not funny, it’s shockingly un-sexy. Raquel Alessi is beautiful, but she’s merely a plot device, as are all of the other female characters. A potential sex scene on a bus, a couple of lesbians in the back seat of a car, even the eventual Playboy Mansion party - all of it feels written by a preadolescent boy who happened across his dad’s Playboy and has no ideas about the opposite sex.

The Blu-Ray for “Miss March” includes both the theatrical and unrated versions of the film along with viral videos - “Sound Design,” “Timmy’s Audition,” “Darren’s Audition,” “Sam’s Audition,” and “Lesbians’ Audition”. A brief faux promo video for “Horsedick.MPEG” called “Down & Dirty” is also included. No commentary track. Who would want to talk about “Miss March”?

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com