MAVERICK
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1995 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
Hollywood finds a surefire recipe for success. Take a legendary TV show and remake it as movie with today's heartthrob (Mel Gibson) as the lead (Maverick). Cast the original actor (James Garner) as a costar (playing a lawman). For love interest, spend more big bucks and get Jodie Foster as a competing gambler and possible lover for Maverick. Film it with sweeping cinematography by an Academy Award winner (Vilmos Zsigmond). Finally, get the Lethal Weapons director (Richard Donner) to direct it. The result has to be a MAVERICK that is a monster hit.
Ho hum. There were laughs - mainly of modest sized proportions. Between laughs there were long periods of boredom.
On the good side, Jodie Foster was wonderfully counter typecast as a sweet and comedic actress rather than the usual serious and hard edged characters she normally plays. Granted she was always trying to outwit and cheat Maverick, but on the surface she had this wonderful sweet smile. If you are of the I'd-be-happy-to-see-Mel-Gibson-reading-the-phone-book variety of Mel Gibson fan, then you will like this movie. He too has a nice smile in it and looks great as he always does.
If they had edited down to an hour, it would have been a passable made for TV, Maverick returns for one more episode, sort of show. There is a single simple problem with this movie. In the script by William Goldman, there is almost nothing interesting that happens and what does happen are simple retreads of themes done countless times before. One more Western without much new to say and with jokes that rarely work.
MAVERICK overextends its welcome running way over at 2:07. It is a fairly wholesome show and gets a mild PG rating. I do not recommend it - you can always rent it later and skip to the few funny scenes. I give it * 1/2 for the few laughs and for Foster's smile.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEWED WRITTEN ON: May 23, 1994
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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