Summary:
Dickie Roberts, child star of a 70's TV show (The Glimmer Gang) is now 35 and parking cars.
Trying find the spotlight once again, he lands an audition for a role of a normal
guy in a Rob Reiner film, but the director
quickly sees he is anything but normal and jokingly says he would have to relive
his childhood to get the part. Desperate to win the part, Dickie hires
a family to help him replay his childhood and assume the identity of an average,
everyday kid.
Review:
This comedy has an amusing premise, one of the funniest actors in hollywood,
and lots of real-life child stars. If all else fails, this movie at least
got everyone of your favorite child stars in one room (Rerun from All in the
Family, Marcia Brady from the Brady Bunch, etc) for a hilarious sendoff at
the end. The movie begins with a hilarious Emmanuelle Lewis cameo and only
picks up steam as the movie continues.
This movie follows the same formula as many other films in what I call
the "unique premise" comedy genre. For instance, The Hot Chick
(Rob Schneider), The Waterboy (Adam Sandler), Billy Madison (Adam Sandler,
The Animal (Rob Schneider), Head of State (Chris Rock), etc. All these
movies follow the same basic principle, have a really funny idea (something
that you might see on Saturday Night Live or Comedy Central), use
situational comedy accentuating the lead actor's finer points (Sandler's
goofy, Spade is obnoxious/nerdy little sprite, or Schneider's outrageous
wildness), and end the movie with some goody goody ending (usually getting
the girl).
Since we know what we are going to get, the success of the movie really
relies on the actors ability to entertain audiences with situational comedy.
This is where this movie does well. Although we've already seen the slip n
slide routine and the David Spade in the baby carriage scene there are
plenty of other routines and sequences which should have audiences reeling
with laughter.
The only place the movie gets bogged down in, is when David Spade
attempts to do impersonations. One thing David Spade is not really good at
is doing impersonations, but yet he insists on filling a good 10-15 minutes
in this flick with shotty impersonations. More or less this slows down the
movie and takes a little pace out of the laughter.
Most people won't go into this movie with a lot of expectations, but will
leave satisfied in being entertained for nearly 1.5 hours. As long as your
open-minded and in a decent mood this movie will make you laugh from time to
time.
See this movie if you're a fan of:
The Waterboy (2002)
The Hot Chick (1998)
The Animal (2001)
Billy Madison (1995)
David Spade (Actor, Tommy Boy, Lost & Found, Black Sheep)
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