You know what I hate? When people underestimate a director for one film that they did in their past. Fred Wolf’s last film, “Strange Wilderness,” was met with terrible reviews. It was one of the worst reviewed films of the year so far, and you want to know one of the only people that really enjoyed it? Me. I was the only one who thought that “Strange Wilderness” was a pretty damn funny flick, and I still get flack for liking it. It doesn’t matter. I’m the only one that laughs at the name “Dick” anymore anyway.

Fred Wolf directs his second film again this year called “The House Bunny.” I didn’t go into this film expecting anything like “Strange Wilderness,” but I went into it expecting to laugh for a little bit. “The House Bunny” has a lot of problems, and it doesn’t have the same amount of laughs that “Strange Wilderness” did, but I think it was a little funny nonetheless. It’s a harmless comedy – and I enjoyed it. Sue me.

Playboy Bunny Shelley (Anna Faris) just turned twenty-seven, and she receives a letter from Hefner telling her to move out of the house in two hours. After a long night, she walks into the house of the Zeta Alpha Zeta sorority, and she BEGS them to let her stay there and be their house mom. The problem here is that the Zetas are the least respected group of all of the sororities, so it should be no surprise that the school is going to make them all move out of the house. Unless, they get thirty pledges by the end of the semester, they will be run out of the house.

But the Zetas are different than other sororities. They’re led by Natalie, (Emma Stone, in her most abnormal role yet) and if you think being a braniac is one of the worst things you can be, you can just wait until you see the rest of these girls. They believe that once Shelley shows them a thing or two about getting guys’ attentions and meeting new friends that they will be saved. Meanwhile, Hefner becomes lost without Shelley, and starts eating tubs of ice-cream. If you though “Mirrors” was scary, I triple dog dare you to say different than this.

“The House Bunny,” like I said, is very funny. The characters, most particularly Anna Faris, do a great job at fitting into their stereotypes. A few of the one-liners are very funny, though some of them are misses. One of the better scenes of the movie is when they go to a bar and Faris tries to get a few of the girls to flirt with the guys. Think about how much I laughed at the scene in “Strange Wilderness” in front of the hospital, which in my opinion is the funniest scene of the year. This almost beats it. Not even “Tropic Thunder” or even the funniest movie of the year, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” could.
But there are a lot of problems with this movie. Unfortunately, the movie isn’t quite good when it comes to continuity, as for one moment a character is a certain way and the next they’re not. An instance here is when one of the characters has to wear a brace. After chasing down the guy that they want to invite to a party, their brace collapses off of them, in a “Forrest Gump” parody. Once the brace falls off, you’ll never see it again. I don’t mean that you won’t see it on her, but you won’t see it on the ground where it fell off at. This happened several times in “Strange Wilderness” too, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the same person is involved with the continuity.

Another one of the problems is a subplot that involves some Bunny in the mansion trying to get Anna Faris thrown out of the mansion. Since Faris’s character is so dumb, it actually works, but when Hefner calls Anna and asks her to come back, it’s like nothing ever happened. I also hated the soundtrack, which was only like that just so it can draw in the pre-teen crowd (like it had any problem in the first place).

Aside from Anna Faris who does a great job, it is Emma Stone that owns the film. She made a name for herself in “Superbad” as “that-girl,” but between this and “The Rocker,” I have a feeling that very little people will know her name. Her best moments are when she comes off awkwardly smart. There isn’t too much to offer with this film, but her performance is one of the few things.

Simply, “The House Bunny” is a harmless comedy for the whole family to enjoy. If you’re not picky with a few errors here and there, then you should be fine. This isn’t the funniest comedy of the year but it hosts one of the funniest scenes from any film this year. And with a great performance by both Anna Faris and Emma Stone, why should you miss this?

1/2