Men with perms. Barry Manilow on the soundtrack. Girls in terry cloth short shorts and knee high socks. Pimp-tastic suits all around. Is this all that is needed to make jokes about the cultural oddities of the '70s? According to the recently released movie version of Starsky and Hutch starring Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller, this should be enough to put us in stitches. But sadly, S&H is more of a funny movie in theory, rather than practice.
When CC first heard that Wilson and Stiller were going to be in a movie version of the popular buddy cop show, the first question which popped into our head was, "Do we really need a Starsky and Hutch movie?" But to see the comedians dressed in their tough guy garb walking down an alley in slo-mo, the connection makes sense. However just because it seems like a good premise, doesn't mean that the filmmakers will execute it into a compelling full length feature. Even though it never was a SNL sketch, that's sort of what these two hours feel like, a comic sketch stretched to its limit. All of this is not to say that there aren't elements to like -- Stiller and Wilson's undeniable buddy chemistry, Vince Vaughn's bat mitzvah throwing bad guy, and Snoop Dogg in general. Now talk about star presence, that Dogg has it in spades. But in general, CC only had a few audible chuckles through the whole thing, and that's not a good sign.
Ranting aside : What's up with IMdB.com lately? The flash movie previews, the rerouting from the page requested to a full page ad for an HBO movie, are so very annoying. There's commercials for a captive audience and then there's overkill. Time to look for another movie info resource...
Posted by karen at March 15, 2004 8:06 AM