Now, I know you're supposed to go into films like this with the lowest of expectations, and, believe me, I did. In the past nine months, I have been to the movies exactly twice, so the theory was that anything would seem good at this point. I've sat through a variety of David Spade vehicles in the past, and found them boring, but not distinctly painful.
Joe Dirt, on the other hand, is both boring and painful. I was ready for it to end within five minutes of the opening credits. Any movie whose most-talked-about scene involves the title character being covered in human feces is bound to have problems, but the problem isn't so much with the attempted offensiveness (I think most of the audience wanted far worse things to be inflicted upon David Spade by that point in the film), but with the fact that there is only ONE JOKE IN THE WHOLE FREAKIN' FILM!!!
You could look at the movie poster for 90 minutes and derive basically the same experience for significantly less expense to you (unless you rack up a loitering charge while hanging around the movie theater). I suppose if you are really entertained by David Spade's wig, you might enjoy the film, but you'd have to be really entertained.
What makes this film even more painful is the very brief respite provided by Christopher Walken. Not only does this prevent the film from claiming the "Worst Film Ever" trophy, it unfairly raises the audience's hopes that someone involved in the film has some idea of what constitutes humor (in this case, Mr. Walken dancing with a mop and threatening a fire extinguisher -- yeah, I know it doesn't sound funny, but remember what had been done to my standards by this point in the film)
Hopefully, I don't need to tell you to avoid this like the plague. Or a plaque. Whichever.
Rating: F (Is that really any surprise?)
Reviewed by Padgett Arango