This live-action version of the classic prime-time cartoon about a Stone Age family has enough special effects and slapstick to keep children amused. But anyone who grew up with the series will quickly get caught up (and bogged down) in point-by-point comparisons. 1. Does Goodman capture the spirit of the prehistoric, two-dimensional Fred? (Yes; he does far better by Fred than Moranis does by Barney Rubble.) 2. Rosie O'Donnell has Betty Rubble's snigger down pat—and makes a better Betty than Perkins does a Wilma Flintstone. 3. Dino, the family pet, is still a cartoon, albeit a computer-animated one. (Shouldn't they have found a real dinosaur for the part, some sort of large, domesticated lizard?) 4. Kyle MacLachlan, as Fred's suavely villainous boss, looks strikingly like Rock Quarry, the TV version's parody of Rock Hudson. 5. The B-52s add some dance-floor edginess to the old theme song, which improves it.
Ultimately, The Flintstones leaves you fidgety and dissatisfied, as if you had just spent 92 minutes taking apart a pile of pebbles, stone by stone, and then built another identical one two feel away. (PG)
Mia Farrow, Joan Plowright, Natasha Richardson, Adrian Dunbar
This movie, set in the Emerald Isle in the 1920s, is one small part crock of gold, one large part crock. Plowright, in what is essentially a reprise of her Enchanted April role, rules a roost of residences inhabited almost exclusively by wealthy, tongue-wagging widow ladies. The two exceptions are Plowright's quite dim-witted son (Adrian Dunbar) and her special pet (Farrow), an impoverished spinster who cultivates roses and the attentions of the local dentist (Jim Broadbent). Life trots along quite uneventfully in the mythical village of Kilshannon Peak. There are meetings of the ladies' club and regular trips to the cemetery so the women can visit their departed husbands. "Enough, ladies," Plowright chides her charges, ending one such visit. "We don't want them getling spoiled." Things get decidedly more interesting when into the garden of widows' weeds comes a wealthy English war widow (Richardson, whose supposed time in the States explains her Yankee accent), all flirtatious smiles and chiffon scarves. While Plowright is immediately enchanted and Dunbar utterly smitten, Farrow is far less charmed by the glamorous newcomer. In fact, she takes an instant dislike to Richardson. After a few attempts at placating Farrow, Richardson returns the animus tit for tat—both women engaging in skirmishes (destroying and defacing each other's property) that soon threaten to lead to foul play.
The screenplay by the often dazzling playwright Hugh Leonard has some moments of impishness, but it's a pretty slight piece of goods—best suited for a slow night on Masterpiece Theatre. What shines here are utterly delectable performances by Plowright, Farrow and Richardson. (PG)
James Garner, Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, James Coburn, Alfred Molina
Let's all tip our Stetsons in salute to the return of good, clean fun. This large-scale western is as playful and consistently ingratiating as the 1957-62 ABC-TV series that inspired it (Garner, Jack Kelly and later Roger Moore starred as gun/cardslingers in the Old West).
Gibson plays Garner's old role, Bret Maverick, while Garner is a retired sheriff shepherding Gibson and con-woman Foster toward a big poker game on a riverboat out of St. Louis.
When Garner and Gibson are both onscreen, not only is it filled with 400 or so pounds of wry, but it also looks like the finals of an infectious grin contest. The usually dour Foster seems coquettish, sly and pretty. Director Richard Donner, having honed his light-action skills with the Superman and Lethal Weapon series, exploits his stars' attractiveness with close-ups and reaction shots. And screenwriter William Goldman evokes his Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with a literate script full of amusing twists and marred only slightly by obscenities.
The secondary casting, unfortunately, is disappointing. While Co-burn is typically supercilious as a slick poker player, and Molina efficiently trots out his bullying Latino routine as Gibson's nemesis, the film cries out for a villain with the stature of Garner and Gibson—Jack Nicholson, say, or Jeremy Irons. Cameos by Gibson's Lethal Weapon buddy, Danny Glover, and country music stars Clint Black, Hal Ketchum, Waylon Jennings and Kathy Mattea whet the appetite for more color around the edges.
If the conclusion is a bit enigmatic, almost never has the prospect of a sequel been so welcome. We can close the competition for the most entertaining of the current spate of feature movies based on old TV shows. (PG)
Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, Ruin Phoenix, Angie Dickinson
Director Gus Van Sant has done such interesting, grungily offbeat stuff in the past (Drugstore Cowboy, Mr Own Private Idaho) that you may be inclined to forgive him this sophomoric bit of '70s countercultural whimsy based on Tom Robbins's famous cult novel. It's meant to be dreamlike, I suppose, but it's closer to a nap, what with its twinkly feel-goodedness, its karmic, bubbleheaded cuteness. You scan the beautiful skies of Oregon, where much of this was filmed, wishing someone would parachute in vinegary old Kurt Vonnegut.
Thurman, a sometime fashion model born with enormous thumbs, spends most of her life hitchhiking from coast to coast. She winds up at the Rubber Rose Ranch, a western spa for wealthv, overweight ladies, just in time to witness a successful rebellion by the resident staff of cowgirls. She then has an affair with one of them, Phoenix (River's sister). Beyond that, there is something to do with whooping cranes fed on peyote, and a long line of stars—Keanu Reeves, John Hurt, Crispin Glover, Sean Young, Noriyuki "Pat" Morita—who float by like dandelion puffs. (R)
- Contributors:
- Tom Gliatto,
- Joanne Kaufman,
- Ralph Novak.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
