Jon Simanton Movies

Scary Movie screenwriters Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer join forces to parody the "biggest" movies ever to hit the silver screen in this comedy that gives such popular box-office hits as Pirates of the Caribbean and Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe the same treatment that Scary Movie gave to the slasher subgenre. A virtual smorgasbord of spoof, Epic Movie tells the tale of four fully grown orphans: one the victim of snakes that attacked her plane, another raised by a kindly Louvre curator, the third a Mexican "libre" wrestling refuge, and the last an average mutant from an "X"-community. When the curious quartet visits a sprawling chocolate factory, they stumble across a magical wardrobe which transports them to the enchanted land of Gnarnia. It seems that the wondrous fantasy land has recently fallen under the spell of the evil White Bitch (Jennifer Coolidge), and in order to bring peace back to Gnarnia these four bumbling mortals will have to join forces with a charismatic pirate, a painfully sincere group of aspiring wizards, and one particularly libidinous lion. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Based on the hit children's television series The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, this film has the teenage superheroes doing battle with the other-worldly villainess Divatox (Hilary Shepard Turner). She is the wife of an evil lord named Maligore who is imprisoned in an energy vacuum inside one of Earth's volcanos. Freeing him would mean doom for the universe. Divatox needs to bring a good wizard named Lerigot (Jon Simanton) to the volcano, because he has the key to unlocking the energy prison. Lerigot flees his planet and escapes to Earth just before Divatox's henchmen capture him. The five Rangers disguise themselves as ordinary teenagers, but their secret is discovered by ten-year-old Justin (Blake Foster), and he is allowed to don a power suit and become one of them. Zordon, the Power Rangers' boss, gives his crew extra powers to thwart Divatox, who with her pirates has captured a submarine. The showdown between the forces of universal good and evil includes plenty of karate and kick-boxing around a seething cauldron of lava. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi