Slapstick of Another Kind

1982

Action / Comedy / Fantasy / Sci-Fi

2
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 15%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 15%
IMDb Rating 2.5/10 10 1175 1.2K

Director

Steven Paul Photo
Steven Paul

Top cast

Merv Griffin Photo
Merv Griffin as Anchorman
John Abbott Photo
John Abbott as Dr. Frankenstein
Patrick Wright Photo
Patrick Wright as Drill Instructor
Ben Frank Photo
Ben Frank as Quentin - the Handyman
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
868.61 MB
1280*714
English 2.0
NR
us  
24 fps
1 hr 34 min
Seeds ...
1.57 GB
1920*1072
English 2.0
NR
us  
24 fps
1 hr 34 min
Seeds 3

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by docmarvy 3 / 10

A fascinating mess

Vonnegut novels have proven time and again very difficult to translate to film. For whatever reason, the subtlety and humanity of the novels get lost or scrambled in the interpretation. And this is probably the most glaring example.Missing most of the point of the book and pulling focus from any reflection on loneliness or the absurdity of modern life and putting that energy into seeing Jerry Lewis interact with a poorly SFX overlay fortune-cookie-shaped UFOs. Which is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the high key racism in the film.An arguably stellar cast gets mostly wasted on a joyless slog through a story that feels only tenuously adjacent to the source material.I was too young when it came out to notice, but it's hard to imagine this seeing some release in the same year that Ghostbusters came out. It feels like it was made in a different decade, in a different dimension. I feel like this film and Heartbeeps bring similar grim energies. Both films I find interesting in their approach. Both intended to be comedies with heartfelt messages at the core, and both of them leaving you with a forlorn emptiness. If you absolutely love the book, maybe don't seek this out. If you want to see a big weird mess, then go for it.
Reviewed by El Norte 2 / 10

Sacrilege of great Vonnegut novel

Despite the consensus that Jerry Lewis hasn't been funny in decades, I opted to watch this painful farce out of my reverence for the great book which 'inspired' it. And it had Marty Feldman -usually a real hoot. What unforgivable tripe! Lewis and Khan play Wilbur and Eliza (giant, ugly twins who are a genius collective genius when together, but idiots when apart) and their aristocrat parents terribly. Sadly, I'll concede that it sticks to the book fairly well -THE FIRST HALF! All the best portions are ultimately lost due to a cop-out screenplay which aims to get laughs from caper-style bumbling and mess-making by over-aged comedians sadly better suited to telethons. Read the novel -it's brilliant; Wilbur becomes the last (and tallest ever) President of the United States just before a plague kills off the majority of its population (wildly suspected to be due to inhalation of microscopic Chinese). His recollections of his better years and falling-out with Eliza are signiature bitter-sweet Vonnegut. The best part of the movie was Pat Morita as a prototypical 3" Chinaman ambassador.
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