I absolutely hated this movie. I remember seeing it back in 1994 when I was 11, and hating it even then. Of course, back then I hadn't seen the movies it was spoofing, such as Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, and Sleeping With The Enemy. Over ten years later, I have seen all these movies, so I thought, "Hey, I'll give this movie another try".
I recently saw it again, and still thought it was terrible. I read a review Roger Ebert gave of it, and he gave the movie one and a half stars. Roger, in my opinion, was being too nice.
Carl Reiner has directed some great movies (i.e. The Jerk), but this is easily his worst. The jokes in the movie ranged from mediocre to just flat out awful and predictable. One of the worst is in the courtroom scene, when the bailiff calls for a ten minute recess. Sure enough, the gag was that everyone went outside and played. Get it? Recess? Ha ha- not! Comedy is indeed hard, but this movie shows that editing your scripts is always a good idea. The kind of humor when the cast acts seriously while the gags speak for themselves worked well for movies like Airplane, Naked Gun, and Hot Shots, but not for this movie. I can't say if it was the acting, the jokes, or the sheer dislike for the characters, but something just wasn't clicking. I'm just curious as to how the cast members felt about this movie as they were doing it. Armand Assante in some scenes looked as if he was ready for Carl to yell "CUT!" any minute. He did not look comfortable doing this comedy. Sean Young looked like she was trying to have fun with it, and is pretty convincing in some scenes. Above all, though, something went terribly wrong with this movie. If you want to rent this movie, I would suggest not paying any more than one dollar for it on video.
I recently saw it again, and still thought it was terrible. I read a review Roger Ebert gave of it, and he gave the movie one and a half stars. Roger, in my opinion, was being too nice.
Carl Reiner has directed some great movies (i.e. The Jerk), but this is easily his worst. The jokes in the movie ranged from mediocre to just flat out awful and predictable. One of the worst is in the courtroom scene, when the bailiff calls for a ten minute recess. Sure enough, the gag was that everyone went outside and played. Get it? Recess? Ha ha- not! Comedy is indeed hard, but this movie shows that editing your scripts is always a good idea. The kind of humor when the cast acts seriously while the gags speak for themselves worked well for movies like Airplane, Naked Gun, and Hot Shots, but not for this movie. I can't say if it was the acting, the jokes, or the sheer dislike for the characters, but something just wasn't clicking. I'm just curious as to how the cast members felt about this movie as they were doing it. Armand Assante in some scenes looked as if he was ready for Carl to yell "CUT!" any minute. He did not look comfortable doing this comedy. Sean Young looked like she was trying to have fun with it, and is pretty convincing in some scenes. Above all, though, something went terribly wrong with this movie. If you want to rent this movie, I would suggest not paying any more than one dollar for it on video.