Am I really alone?

The last I checked "Miss March" had a ZERO rating on "Rotten Tomatoes" and a mere 10 rating on "Metacritic."

Am I really alone?

Okay, okay. Before you start thinking I'm about to give "Miss March" a 4-star rating.  You can rest easy.

"Miss March" isn't brilliant cinema.

Not even close.

"Miss March" is a sex comedy. It's a stereotypical, paint-by-numbers sex comedy that follows nearly every plot device and filmmaking rule there is for a sex comedy.

"Miss March," written and directed by its co-stars Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, is partly an Apatow-flavored over-the-top crudefest and partly a low-budget Happy Madison film with its touches of sweetness and willingness to laugh at every sex joke, body fluid and innuendo that floats across the screen.

"Miss March" is neither as successful as an Apatow film nor even the most modestly successful Happy Madison film, with the possible exception of the just plain godawful "Strange Wilderness."

But, really, what did you expect here?

Award-winning acting?

Please.

An intelligent, insightful script?

Surely not.

What you get with "Miss March" is a modestly successful, occasionally funny, occasionally sweet and generally good-hearted film with solid chemistry between the film's two leads, the dumb and dumberer Tucker (Trevor Moore) and the more grounded Eugene (Zach Cregger).

In the film, Eugene is a high school senior who spends his day giving "Abstinence Now" lectures with his longtime girlfriend, Cindi (Raquel Alessi). His best friend Tucker, on the other hand, is your sex-obsessed horndog who can barely say a sentence without becoming fully erect. On the night of his senior prom, Eugene relents to Cindi's desires to finally have sex after 2 1/2 years but a tragic accidents lands him in a coma where he stays for the next four years.

When Eugene, thanks to an unorthodox intervention by Tucker, finally wakes up his entire life has changed.

His father has skipped town.

Oh, and Cindi is a Playboy centerfold.

Do you see where this is going?

Yes, you probably do and, yes, you are probably right.

Again, I ask, Am I really the only one?

I admit it. I laughed...maybe not every moment of the film (okay, DEFINITELY not every moment of the film), however, I laughed a lot more than I usually do with these films.

Cregger, in particular, has a sort of Ryan Reynolds "good guy" quality about him that draws you in and makes you genuinely interested in what a dilemma it would be to wake up and find that everything around you had changed.

It was Cregger's ability to sell this dilemma, in fact, that made the ending itself so lacking. While it was clear what Cregger and Moore were going for, the ending feels a touch rushed and, as a result, less emotionally satisfying as Eugene and Cindi finally come face to face.

While Moore's performance is arguably funnier than that of Cregger, it's ultimately a less satisfying performance as more of the funny lines fall flat and Moore lacks Cregger's range and ability to sell his growing maturity over the course of the film. I got the sense that the original script for "Miss March" may have, in fact, been much edgier than what we're seeing as the finished product, and it's that lack of edge that ultimately hurts the film.

Tip to filmmakers and studios. If you're going to go ahead and make a sex comedy "R" rated, don't worry about appealing the masses and just go for it...especially if you have the misfortune to open on the same weekend as a horror film.

Raquel Alessi does a nice job as the devoted girlfriend turned centerfold, though the film's rushed ending leaves her "justification" scene feeling hollow and unconvincing. As the girl who may have just captured Tucker's heart, Molly Stanton is both sexy and funny with one scene, involving oral sex and pole dancing, that is laugh out loud funny.

I should warn all my firefighting readers that a running gag involving the violent, impulsive "brotherhood" of firefighters is unlikely to win many fans among firemen. It's probably a good thing there were no fires on sets, eh?

Craig Robinson, a regular on "The Office," does a nice job as a former friend who has become a rap star by the time Eugene wakes up. While his "routine" wears a bit thin by the end of the film, Robinson's performance is rock, or is that rap, solid.

Tech credits are generally fine for this type of film, which requires not much more than the ability to follow characters around, keep things decently lit and flash the T&A on a regular basis.

Mission accomplished.

So, there you have it.

I disagree with nearly every critic in America.

Is "Miss March" a great film?

Nope.

But, for those of you who can appreciate a good-hearted, raunchy and occasionally funny sex comedy "Miss March" will make you laugh so hard you may just crap your pants.


© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic