Inspector Gadget
Directed by David Kellogg
Story by Danny Olsen and Kerry Ehrin
Written by Kerry Ehrin, Zak Penn, and Audrey Wells
Starring Matthew Broderick, Rupert Everett, Andy Dick, Joely Fisher, and Dabney Coleman
As Reviewed by James Brundage (MovieKritic2000)
Its a sad state of affairs when Republicans and Democrats can get along better than rival movie studios. Nine times out of ten, republicans and democrats can't sit in the same room without yelling, yet, with at least some bipartisan cooperation, they can churn out a good law every once in a while.
Movie studios, on the other hand, refuse to collaborate even when it would be in there best interests. Case in point: Inspector Gadget and Wild Wild West.
Inspector Gadget is the latest in a string of cartoon adaptations that generally annoy me. This one, however, would have been a lot better under the command of Barry Sonnefield. Sonnfield decided to do Wild Wild West, a movie with no plot, no fine performances, and a focus on action. Novice director David Kellogg got to do inspector Gadget, a film that has plot, has performances, and has a focus on comedy. It just lacks that particular thing called timing.
Where as Wild Wild West never made me laugh, Inspector Gadget irked out a few (by definition, I laughed exactly three times during the movie). However, Inspector Gadget's wet behind the ears director David Kellogg just couldn't handle a movie of Inspector Gadget's plot... and that's not a lot to ask.
Of course, I can't get my wish and Inspector Gadget WASN'T done by Barry Sonnfield, so instead I had to sit through the hour and a half of Disney crap.
Inspector Gadget tells the story of John Brown (Matthew Broderick), who gets a serious injury while trying to stop Claw (Rupert Everett, the fun part of the movie) from getting away with robbery and murder. He becomes the experimental prototype of a new form of cybernetic police officer known as Inspector Gadget, and gets to fulfill his dream of becoming a supercop. Of course he has a love interest, Brenda (Joely Fisher). Of course he has a car that talks back to him (can we say LOVE BUG?).
Basically, Claw creates a duplicate evil Gadget (also played by Broderick, who has versatility even in as flat a role as Inspector Gadget offers him) who tries to destroy Riverdale and, from then in, the movie is completely cliche and predictable.
Of the several annoyances I have over this film, three rank high on my list. The first is that all of the great actors are given terrible roles. Rupert Everett, Andy Dick, Mathew Broderick. These are three people able to pass off a joke in a Nazi Death Camp (along with Roberto Benigni), but the writers don't give them a single chance. Two, the cartoon wasn't that good to begin with (I spent a good portion of my youth watching its ilk), and the movie was worse than the cartoon, and three, it decided that it was going to rename the city Riverdale.
The movie is obviously filmed in Pittsburgh, a city that truly shines out in the film, yet the writers decided to set the movie in Riverdale. Hello? What does that do if everyone notices the city as Pittsburgh? Of course, I'm only saying this because I live near the burgh and for some reason the steel city grows on you (kinda like New Jersey), but I still think it's a crock. A lot more people would have been happy if they moved it to Pittsburgh, but NO!
It doesn't matter, anyway. Even if they moved the location to Pittsburgh, the movie would have still sucked. It just should have been done with the touch of Sonnfield, not some idiot still reading a camera manual.
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