I got to see a couple of movies over the weekend: Underdog and Stardust. I liked one, the other I didn't.
When I was a kid, I absolutely loved Underdog. The cartoons had me hooked. Sure, Mighty Mouse was fun, but there was something weirdly addictive to Underdog that I couldn't resist. Sweet Polly Purebred was always in trouble. The humble secret identity of Shoeshine Boy. "In the secret compartment of my ring I fill with the Underdog Super Energy Pill." I still remember the great cliffhanger in which Simon Barsinister was going to dehydrate the Atlantic Ocean. Now that's a nefarious scheme if ever there was one!
Alas, the movie doesn't live up to that gleeful mayhem. Tragically, it opens with the original cartoons, making the abomination that follows look even worse by comparison. Instead, it goes through the big Hollywood book of cliches to produce an origin story like any other, in which Simon Barsinister's sinister experiments actually create Underdog, and shoehorn in a father-son bonding sub-plot. Patrick Walburton plays the evil henchman in the exact same way he's ever played any character. The film is an uninspired mess. Seriously. The daughters, who are the ones who wanted to see this turkey in the first place, left the theater grumbling that the ending "wasn't very good." These are the kids that gobble up every Barbie direct-to-video DVD ever produced and ask for more, so that's saying something right there. To rectify this awful situation, I've added the original Underdog cartoons to my Netflix queue. They're not up to the brilliant level of, say, Rocky & Bullwinkle, but they're good.
Stardust, on the other hand, was a great deal of fun. I've never read Gaiman's original "adult fairy tale" but the film has a Gaimanish rhythm to it, so I assume they haven't changed it up too much. There are some plot holes here and there I assume would've been addressed had this been a three-hour film, but it worked quite well at two. Claire Danes has always had an elfin, otherworldly look to her, and now that she's undeniably a grown-up woman, she works quite well as the fallen star. Michelle Pfeiffer is so good as one of three witch sisters that you have to wonder why she doesn't get more work. And Robert DeNiro really, and I mean really, hams it up as the dirigible Captain Shakespeare. My biggest gripe actually comes at the expense of that cool, lightning-harvesting airship: The gas bag is far too small to have a prayer of lifting the ship. Sure, you can claim this is a magical realm, but airships are my thing, so I like my movies to at least try to get a little verisimilitude going.
Stardust sincerely wants to be The Princess Bride for a new generation, but it never reaches that sustained level of perfection. It's quite funny, though, and never takes itself too seriously. If you know the tropes of your fairy tales, things wrap up as they only could--albeit with a few unforseen twists along the way. No matter what it does at the box office, I imagine it will soon become a perennial favorite on DVD.
Now Playing: Christopher Franke Babylon 5
Sandi and I saw STARDUST this last weekend and really enjoyed it. I was hot for Underdog until I saw the previews. It looks much like old Hollywood's disdainful "Let's throw something to the kiddies. They won't know the difference" type film. I did have one friend who saw it that thought it was OK but his taste is somewhat suspect. Had to be better than Daddy Day Care or Day Camp.
ReplyDeleteWait, I've read a book you havn't? Before the movie came out? Wow, I'm suprised.
ReplyDeleteIt roughly follows the book, though there is a considerable ammount of new action put into it. But It's also been a few years since I've read the book too.