According to the advertisements, Date Movie comes from "two of the six writers of Scary Movie." They really should have called up the other four guys.

Date Movie, which the writers also directed, strings together the plot points and gags of countless date films, throws them in a blender, tosses in some un-funniness and spits out a movie that somehow made 22 million dollars this weekend.

Date Movie stars Alyson Hannigan of the American Pie trilogy as a beautiful and talented actress. I've been saying for years that she deserves her own feature film, but I had no idea she would choose something like this.

Hannigan plays Julia Jones (yep, there's a whole Bridget Jones tie-in), an overweight, lonely woman working at her father's Greek diner (there's My Big Fat Greek Wedding). The best part is that the black actor Eddie Griffin plays the father role, so the joke made no sense, which was actually a funny idea.

At that point, I had hope for this movie. Great parodies don't just mimic memorable quotes or plot devices, they build on them and make the copy-catting funny in itself.

That approach would have saved this movie, but no such luck. The writers went down their romantic comedy lists, and checked off each item to be copied. The hilarious Meg Ryan fake-orgasm scene? Check. The crazy parents in Meet the Fockers? Check. A date doctor named Hitch who makes fun of white people dancing? Check.

Besides Hannigan and Griffin, the cast is mostly made up of unknown actors.

They're all adequate, but Hannigan is the real mystery. In the opening scenes, Hannigan dons a fat suit to play Julia and shakes her junk in the streets, looking for men. It's funny in a painful way.

Later in the film, Julia miraculously transforms into a sexy gal and Hannigan channels her role as nerdy-girl Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer self. It's a bewildering change that reflects the whole movie -- the idea sounds funny on paper, but doesn't work in practice.

Grade: D

-- Reviewed by Kathryn Stevens