Orgazmo Review
by Scott Renshaw (renshaw AT inconnect DOT com)October 24th, 1998
ORGAZMO
(Rogue)
Starring: Trey Parker, Dian Bachar, Robyn Lynne Raab, Michael Dean Jacobs, Matt Stone.
Screenplay: Trey Parker.
Producers: Fran Rubel Kuzui, Jason McHugh, Matt Stone.
MPAA Rating: NC-17 (sexual content, profanity, adult themes, violence) Running Time: 95 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
It's the film so daring that it earned a rare NC-17 rating! It's the film so controversial that Universal Pictures, the parent company of October Films, forced October to create a separate releasing arm to distance itself from the film! It's the film so outrageous that only Trey Parker, the bad-boy co-creator of "South Park," could have brought it to you! It's ORGAZMO, a film destined for midnight movie immortality!
They say there's no such thing as bad publicity...unless you're a potential film viewer who pays attention to it. Anyone expecting naughty, edgy fun from ORGAZMO might find that its most shocking surprise is how uninspired much of its "outrageousness" is. Sure, it hits two guaranteed hot-buttons -- religion and sex -- in this tale of a naive Mormon lad named Joe Young (played by Parker himself) serving a mission in Los Angeles. One day he knocks on the wrong door, and ends up on the set of porno film director Maxxx Orbison (Michael Dean Jacobs). Impressed by Joe's martial arts skills when he fends off a group of bodyguards, Orbison offers Joe the lead role of Captain Orgazmo (physical stunts only, no sex required), along with a huge paycheck which will allow Joe and his fiancee Lisa (Robyn Lynne Raab) to marry in the Salt Lake City temple and live well. Oh, and Joe also becomes a _real_ crime-fighting super-hero who uses a high-tech weapon to paralyze adversaries with intense sexual pleasure.
Occasionally, it looks like Parker is going to take this story on just the right avenue of absurdity. The film-within-the-film "Orgazmo" turns out to be a crossover smash hit, ranking third on the all-time box office chart and naturally creating demand for a sequel. Then there's the odd little aside in which Joe's film sidekick Ben (Dian Bachar) re-lives a painful childhood memory of giving up "hamster style" martial arts, and a cameo appearance by a certain heavenly personage. There are a few amusing gags sprinkled throughout ORGAZMO, many aimed at the absurdity of adult film "plot" scenarios when they're not taking broad shots at Utah or the Latter-Day Saints.
The problem with Parker's sense of humor is that it can be terribly lazy. His favorite set-up involves wacky character incongruities which actually lost most of their wackiness many iterations ago -- an old woman swearing like a sailor, an old woman showing sexual arousal, a Japanese sushi chef who uses hip-hop lingo. His running gags include brilliant innovations like a surly porno actor who passes gas in the face of others ("South Park's" Terence and Philip, eat your hearts out), and a lighting technician (Parker's cohort Matt Stone) who begins every sentence with "I don't want to seem like a queer or nothin'..." until eventually -- inevitably -- he actually makes a pass at another male character. You can see punch lines coming from several theaters away in ORGAZMO.
Those who might attend just for prurient interest should also be warned that ORGAZMO is about as tame as an NC-17 film could get. Though there's plenty of full-clothed grinding and prominent displays of certain marital aids, there's nary an exposed female body part to be found (hairy male buttocks, on the other hand, get a disturbing amount of screen time). Make no mistake, Trey Parker's brand of offensiveness is far more sniggering, middle-of-the-road crude than it is truly shocking. There's nothing wrong with the production being sloppy and amateurish; after all, this is among other things a parody of porno films, with a wonderfully cheesy fake explosion for a conclusion. It's another thing when the humor is often sloppy and amateurish...or worse yet, re-cycled. ORGAZMO inspires the one reaction a "daring," "controversial," "outrageous" film can't afford: a great big "so what?"
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 missionary positions: 5.
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