Change Your Image
tryberg
Reviews
The Brady Bunch in the White House (2002)
What else is there to say?
Yes, this movie was "lame" and a great disappointment. I didn't watch it "live" so I was able to edit out the commercials. It doesn't make it any better.
A lot has been said about the fact that the kid actors were all recast, but I feel the need to remind everybody that the first Brady Bunch movie was made in 1995 -- seven years ago -- and all of those actors were MUCH older than their characters THEN. Now they'd just be laughable (and not in a good way).
People are all abuz about Greg and Marcia talking about repopulating the world (the line "we're not REALLY brother and sister" was in the preview so I'm not saying much there). I will simply remind the readers that A Very Brady Sequel took things MUCH further, with Greg and Marcia sharing the attic room, checking eachother out (both at the pool and behind the sheet separating their beds) and a full fleged on the mouth KIS at the end.
SPOILER'S AHEAD:
Safety Monitor Bobby Brady finds a lottery ticket when he rescues a little girl's cat from an abandoned building (sound familliar?). Bobby and the other kids want to keep it, but Mike will hear nothing of it. After numerous attempts to find the owner of the ticket by asking people to tell what they wrote on the back of it (it was a 1-900 number), they decide to cash it in and donate the money to a home for homeless architects.
The President of the United States recognizes this in a White House press conference. At the same press conference it is anounced that the Vice President has resigned in discrace (or is it he isn't running again because of a scandal? something like that). The President tells everyone that he has a committee searching for a candidate and makes a comment about "not everybody's like Mike Brady" and someone suggests that he ask Mike. It seems popular so he runs with it.
He is overwhelmingly re-elected because of massive turnouts of people who won't let the 70's die vote for him. In one of his campaign statements the President denies all knowlege of some corrupt oil dirller or some such thing. Just as he is about to be sworn in, someone shows him a picture of himself at the drilling site and he promptly walks off. Someone shows the same picture to the Cheif Justice of the Supreme Court who understands and swears Mike in as President.
The family returns home, packs things up and moves into the white house. The next half hour is full of jibes at the cluelessness of the Bradys (especially Jan, who has taken to talking to a picture of Abe Lincoln) as they settle into life in the White House.
Anyway, after settling in, Mike's first order of business is to select a Vice President (Contrary to what another reviewer said, this IS legal. A sitting president selects a replacement as long as the Senate approves it. This is established by the Richard Nixon/Spero Agnew/Gerrold Ford fiasco). There is no law against the First Lady being Vice President. The Senate is reluctant to accept this. but ends up doing so. They later regert it when, while presiding over the Senate, she makes two of them have a time out because thery are arguing.
There are several more entertaining scenes where Bobby breaks a priceless vase and the other kids all cover for him (and suffer for it) because he really wants to go to "Camp David." (Sound familliar?)
Soon enough it becomes apparent that the Speaker of the House and a white house staffer are in kahoots to gain power. Angry that the speaker was not chosen to be Vice President they plot to unseat Mike. They switch Bobby's homework with some important documents from NASA and trick Mike into anouncing that a huge asteroud is going to crash into the planet killing everyone.
He then talks the Bradys into hiding in the White House Bunker because it will give comfort to the American People to know that the First Family. While hiding we have the now infamous conversation where Greg and Marcia talk about repopulating the world (the Incest Taboo).
Cindy tattles that she saw the speaker switch the papers and the family breaks out of the bunker (which was locked behind them) just in time to tell the press what the Speaker has done and he is arrested by the Secret Service.
The End.
Brady Bunch Home Movies (1995)
What a disappointment
This movie has been hyped to death and really wasn't that good. It was supposed to give us some extra insight into the actors and it really didn't. Don't get me wrong, it was cute and all, but I found that I didn't learn anything from it. Much of the footage was used over and over again. How many times are we expected to watch Marcia/Maureen stick out her tong at us in the Brady bedroom, or the girls chase each other on the beach?
The Bradys (1990)
Unbelievable
That one word describes this series. The pilot episode involving Bobby being paralyzed and Jan and Phillip's marital problems (among other side archs) was actually well written. The rest of it went down from there. The family has to move because their house at 4226 Clinton Way is in the path of a freeway development. ok, fair enough so far. They are unsucessfull at getting that changed; uh huh. Next, so they decide to move the house; literally cut it into pieces and move it, so that the producers can stop using the fooage of the actual house filmed back in the 60's (the real house, while still there, looks nothing like it did and is now protected by a big wall), but not design new sets. This is where it started to be a stretch. Mike is mad that their councilman wouldn't support them in their opposition so he decides to run against him, and (surprise! surprise!) he won. This is where they lost me. The rest of the series went downhill from there, culmunating with Marcia's alchoholism. Don't get me wrong, I think that Marcia becoming an alchoholic was a good idea (it was built on from the way things were when the series started -- can we say good plot development?) but the writing could have been better, and then she admits her problem (after hitting bottom) gets and into treatment (becoming an advocate for people with her problem to seek help); all in one episode. Then in the next episode it was completely forgotten. Oh, please! The next, and final (thankfully)m episode dealt with the girls putting together a catering business (The Party Girls). Oh, and least I forget, throughout the show Cindy is dating her widowed (or was it divorced, I forget) boss at the radio station where she works as a D.J. Ack Ack Ack. Go away!