HARRIET THE SPY
A film review by Kevin Maguire
Copyright 1996 Kevin Maguire
Director: Bronwen Hughes Producers: Tons Of People From Nickelodeon Starring: Michelle Trachtenburg, Rosie O'Donnell.
In the new movie HARRIET THE SPY, Michelle Trachtenburg plays an intrepid young girl set on spying people and things. However, as any movie must have it, Trachtenburg gets stuck several times doing things and spying on things that aren't really appropriate for her to be seeing. She has every piece of spy gear possible, glasses, rope, a huge treehouse. What more could go wrong?
The movie she's in. HARRIET THE SPY, although sometimes strangely validating, and in one scene, touching, is a comedy that has been cranked out of a machine. Although the idea is based on a good book, it's not supposed to be funny. The idea is that Harriet can go around spying on people, and we should be able to really sense her intensity level. But comedy once again woes us. There are stupid fights, and flatulence attacks.
Indeed, one of the biggest problems in HARRIET THE SPY is within its producers. Workers for Nickelodeon, these producers have made a half funny, half touching, and no thrilling movie that reminds me of sugar in a Pixy-Stik. It's just sugar, there's no real flavor in the different colors. Rosie O'Donnell, hot off her Merv Griffith approved TV program, THE ROSIE O'DONNELL SHOW, surprisingly keeps going on a roll. Her performance is spunky, and charged with wit that I don't see in a Woody Allen film.
To bad the writing shrinks her to another one of the movie's concocted characters. In HARRIET THE SPY, there's no way to separate what's corny, and what's not. Ideally, the movie would be an IT TAKES TWO takeoff. It does one step better than that movie, but this one's still way off base.
Rating : C
Kevin Maguire
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