The Darwin Awards (2006)

Let's be realistic.

Amateur movie with Big budget

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This is a hit and miss comedy with four or five hysterical scenes and four or five too confused to be funny scenes. It has some sharply original moments, but it also copies too much from the television series "Monk" The television series "Pushing Daisies" also seems to have elements in common.It actually could have been good as a television series. Joseph Fiennes is much better here than he was on "Flash Forward". At least here, he laughs and shows some human emotions. Winona Ryder gives wonderful support as usual.There are lots of stars here, but unfortunately there parts are only four or five minutes each. It is nice to see people like Nora Dunn and Juliet Lewis who don't work enough these days.Sadly, this was Chris Penn's last major film. He accidentally died of a massive heart attack brought on by drugs like cocaine, and over-eating steaks and chocolate milk shakes at the rather young age of 40. It is quite ironic that his last major work should be a film about the stupid ways that people die. Not to be cruel, as Penn was a wonderful actor, but his death could be added quite easily to the five or six ridiculous deaths and accidents that the movie chronicles.My favorite scene in the movie is the one at the Metallica concert. I have a feeling that Heavy Metal music fans often win Darwin Awards (awards for bizarre and stupid deaths).There's a good selection of popular songs on the soundtrack.If you don't expect too much in the way of coherence and can get into the silly spirit of the film, it can be enjoyable.Incidentally, you should keep watching to the end of the credits for one last joke at the end.

The Darwin Awards was too well written for the substandard acting of Winona Ryder and Joseph Fiennes who were very privileged to be given the main roles. It was full of funny concepts, twists, and turns; but fell short of the gut-busting laughter that I had hoped for. I can say, however, that I won't forget the movie because the back-up casting was excellent and helped keep my attention between nodding off and hovering my finger over the "stop" button on my remote. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this movie to a friend as a "good" movie to watch, but rather something to watch if someone is home sick on a Friday night with either this or "Nanny Dearest" to choose from to keep them remotely distracted from fever, chills, and general discomfort...such as I did.

I saw this appear on Showtime and it looked like it was going to be interesting. I liked the way that the film paid homage to the web site and even showed it so that others not in the know could enjoy the delights of the site.I was a bit disappointed in the star billing of David Arquette, I expected him to have a bigger role. I know that he did take part in one of the more major "Darwin" stories but he wasn't really even close to being the main character.As far as the "awards" went, I would have liked to see more of them, maybe not as long as some of the big ones, little snippets like the one that starts the movie, I feel that this is the main reason people will want to watch the movie.The interpersonal relationship between the two main characters was somewhat interesting but I felt that it went a bit too far. Concerning the "documentary" film maker, that was just annoying and did not add much to the plot or the pace of the film; it was more of a distraction than anything else.Overall I gave this a 5 because I felt that it could have delivered much much more than it did but there is enough there to spend an hour and a half with.Finally the inclusion of the dudes from Muthbusters was great, they played it somewhat tongue in cheek which made it even funnier.

It took roughly five minutes to tell The Darwin Awards was an awful, misbegotten, badly directed piece of tripe; I gave it another fifteen to change my mind, and when it didn't, I turned it off, not willing to give up another hour and change being tortured with gag inducing 'quirky' characters undergoing a 'quirky' storyline that would no doubt entreat the viewer to find its 'quirky' heart and undergo a 'quirky' catharsis. The disgust this movie induced in me was a familiar sort, and when I checked IMDb and saw it was by the same fellow who inflicted "Dream with the Fishes" on hundreds of unsuspecting film enthusiasts including myself, Finn Taylor, I understood what I needed to do, namely warn you, my fellow movie watchers, against this and any other film written and directed by this man. (There are only three, the two aforementioned and "Cherish"; it's a small blessing that Taylor seems to take his time either writing, editing or -more likely- getting funding for his project, which have come out at four to five year intervals.) You may, like me, have been curious about this film due to your also having chuckled at the grotesque comedy of the Darwin award winners, but I will say in all honesty, this film does not do them justice. Ironically, the filmmaker himself has not has his career killed churning out these horrifically stupid films, which would seem to imply that the Hollywood independent film scene is not governed by natural selection. That's a pity.What is the essence of what makes this and his other films suck? It's a number of things, starting with the quirkiness. Why bother with richly imagined characters when you can stack up a couple esoteric phobias and qualities and call it macaroni? Why indeed. So our main character in The Darwin Awards is a police profiler who faints at the sight of blood: comedy gold, because you know it is just soooo ironic, and irony is best when it isn't subtle and is poorly executed in annoyingly mannered performances.Then there is the 'intelligence' of the scripts, where you'll find, for instance, a serial killer complaining about the profiler quoting an overused line from a famous poem. How exquisite, and yet in the midst of such a badly made film, one sees the difference between knowledge and practical wisdom.The Darwin Awards features a moronic and grating student documentary maker who is following the main character around, giving another 'clever' layer to the film, by annoying the viewer with those stupid camera frame lines that let you know when you're looking through the documentary filmmakers pov, versus all the other shots that aren't annoying hand-held drek. The maker of the actual film tries to avoid being seen as pretentious and untalented by having a filmmaker in it that is satirized as being pretentious and untalented. Because I'm an irresponsible reviewer, I'll guess that this character is an unconscious avatar of Taylor's own self-doubts about his talent, and I'm hoping someone who knows and loves this man will play intellectual midwife to him and help him realize that he should stop making films, and maybe consider a profession more suited to his talents, which I'm sure are substantial, albeit not manifested in his cinematic work thus far. They say as a young man, Kurosawa was interested in painting, but realized after a time that while he was proficient enough, his works were derivative, and so he got into film making, where he excelled. Perhaps Finn Taylor should get out of film making and become a painter.