Dogma (1999)

Writer-director Kevin Smith has a filmography that can be rated and ranked in a number of different ways. You can pick his best film, which will always be Red State for me. You can pick his funniest film, which is where I may end up going for the wonderful silliness of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. Or you can pick his most fully-formed and cinematic film. That is where Dogma comes in. Very cleverly having fun with some aspects of organised religion without necessarily making fun of those who have faith, Dogma is smart, funny, and has a couple of sequences that show Smith able to deliver more than just great dialogue.

Linda Fiorentino plays Bethany, a woman who is very surprised when she is visited in the night by Metatron (Alan Rickman) AKA the voice of god. Metatron tells Bethany that she must go on a quest, one to stop two angels (Loki and Bartleby, played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) being allowed to reclaim their places in heaven. If Loki and Bartleny manage such a thing, only made possible by a Cardinal (George Carlin) who has stupidly offered absolution to everyone entering his church, then it will prove God to be fallible. And if God is proven to be fallible then, well, that will destroy everything. Literally. Bethany finds herself accompanied on her quest by two unlikely "prophets" (Jay and Silent Bob, played, as ever, by Jason Mewes and Smith), an apostle named Rufus (Chris Rock), and the delightful Serendipity (Salma Hayek).

At 130 minutes, this is also the longest narrative feature from Smith, but it doesn't feel it. Taking time to get all of the pieces in place during a number of opening scenes that don't start to fully intertwine into a full main throughline until some time later, Smith remembers to keep the comedy dotted throughout until he can then relax and have the most amount of fun when everyone has been introduced and set on their respective journeys. Things step up a notch whenever Rickman, Damon, or Affleck appear onscreen, but it's also fun to watch the whole thing derail momentarily when the characters of Jay & Silent Bob barge their way into the story.

While the dialogue is still clearly the area in which Smith is most comfortable, he surrounds it in this film with a number of great ideas and a real sense of everything building towards a grand and satisfying ending. The execution is imperfect, arguably hampered by what I am sure were limitations that were placed on budget and resources for a film that many would start to protest even before it was released, but Smith tries hard to deliver some set-pieces that keep viewers aware of much more happening just outwith the edges of every frame. 

Fiorentino may not be the best lead, but she does well enough as someone both confused and hesitant to keep doing what she's being told must be done. It's the rest of the supporting cast who shine though, particularly the stars who you either wouldn't normally think of as being part of a Kevin Smith film (Rickman, Carlin, Hayek, and Rock) or stars who are very much well-suited to delivering his writing (Damon, Affleck, a delightfully devilish Jason Lee). Almost everyone feels as if they're having a LOT of fun, and that fun emanates from the screen. Elsewhere, film fans will enjoy seeing small roles for Bud Cort, Brian O'Halloran, Janeane Garofalo, Jeff Anderson, and Alanis Morissette. 

It seems fitting that Smith wrote and directed a movie that could at times feel like his most mature and smartest work, and at other times had some of the main characters battling against a demon made of poo. Dogma is very often crude, in both the dialogue and the film-making tricks used to get Smith's vision onscreen, but it holds up well because the intention is always clear. Faith is good, the wide spectrum of humanity is often also good, and the worst thing to happen to religion stems from the humans who decided to twist and wield it to suit their own agenda. 

I still love many of Smith's rougher comedies. I still love Red State. This remains his greatest cinematic achievement though. Amen. 

9/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

New Jack City (1991)

A film I somehow missed when it was first released, despite hearing a lot of good talk about it, New Jack City constantly kept being held back from the top of my prioritised viewing list by many other movies. That’s a shame, because this is a great movie, energetic and entertaining throughout, with a nicely stacked cast.

It’s the tale of a drug dealer/crimelord, named Nino (Wesley Snipes), who seems to remain far too many steps ahead of the law. He rose to his position thanks to the introduction of crack cocaine into the drug market. Addicts die, threats die, competitors die, but Nino just keeps on trucking, much to the frustration of a special task force that has been assembled to bring him down. Headed up by Detective Stone (Mario Van Peebles), the two men most likely to get some kind of victory over Nino are Appleton (Ice-T) and Peretti (Judd Nelson). They are willing to do whatever it takes, even helping an addict (Pookie, played by Chris Rock) clean and asking him to do some undercover work for them.

Written by Thomas Lee Wright and Barry Michael Cooper, New Jack City dances beautifully between some moments of realistic violence, some very pertinent points on the changing face of modern crime and those in charge, and pure visceral cinema. All of the characters feel slightly larger than life, but that helps to underline the idea of the way territories have been redrawn and reformed. And there is snappy dialogue throughout that reveals extra information about choices made by the main characters.

The champ of delivering that snappy dialogue is Snipes, who gives what could well be his best ever performance, all confidence and no heart. Having said that, Snipes has so many great performances tucked away in his filmography that it’s tough to pick out a clear favourite. He owns every minute of his screentime here though, and it’s a good job. His character needs that charisma and presence to be at all believable, even while being so enjoyably over the top. Ice-T and Nelson have to bicker at one another in standard “cops who may not like one another, but will look out for one another” mode, and they do well with what they’re given, especially when delivering some more melodramatic moments in the finale. Then there’s Rock, delivering a fantastic performance as an itchy and desperate junkie who is given a big second chance at life. Bill Nunn and Bill Cobbs are as good as ever, Allen Payne does perfectly okay, although he is the weakest of the main players, and there are many others worth keeping an eye out for, from Michael Michele and Vanessa Williams to Russell Wong and Anthony DeSando, as well as Fab 5 Freddy, Flavor Flav, and more.

Although he has a supporting role, Van Peebles also gives himself the much more important job of directing this thing. Helped by the casting, and the soundtrack (this has an amazing soundtrack), he delivers a film that I would easily rank alongside many of the top crime films of the 1990s. It’s arguable that making something more grounded, and grittier, would have been a better approach, but this is a slickly-packaged bit of entertainment that is also a call for change. Van Peebles, with the script he is working from, gives viewers a sugar-coated pill, but you can still easily taste the sour centre. 

It may not seem as worthy as a film like Boyz N The Hood (released in the same year), or Menace II Society (which came along a couple of years later), but it is just as deserving of your time, even if it takes a very different approach to the social issues being explored.

9/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Spiral: From The Book Of Saw (2021)

When is a Saw movie not a Saw movie? When it's Spiral: From The Book Of Saw, an attempt to get more golden eggs from a goose that should have been killed off about five years ago. And I say this as someone who has tended to enjoy most entries in the series, including Jigsaw (2017).

Chris Rock plays Detective Zeke Banks, a cop who cannot really trust other cops at his precinct. He's been left to fly solo ever since turning in a dirty cop some years ago, but his latest escapade sees the Captain (Marisol Nichols) pairing him up with young Detective William Schenk (Max Minghella). The two soon have their nerve tested when they investigate a crime scene that feels very much like the kind of thing that would have been planned by Jigsaw. But Jigsaw's dead. So who is doing the killing now, and why are they just targeting bad cops? Detective Banks might be more able than most to follow the trail, even if he ends up asking his father (Samuel L. Jackson) some uncomfortable questions about his tenure as Captain.

With Darren Lynn Bousman back in the director's chair (he helmed the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Saw movies) and the competent writing team of Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger (who gave us the decent Sorority Row, one of the better remakes, Piranha 3D, and Jigsaw), you'd be forgiven for expecting more from this film than it delivers. These films never hold up to close scrutiny, of course (otherwise every killer has to have perfect timing, in-depth medical knowledge, and access to more real estate than your average billionaire), but if everything moves along well enough, and packs a punch in the final act, then that's okay. Spiral doesn't manage that, which is a shame.

The first problem is how heavily signposted everything is here. As rubbish as I am at spotting twists, I formulated my theory for how this whole thing would play out within about 15-20 minutes. And I was absolutely spot on. Not that the Saw movies have often been impossible to predict, but this feels as if it's a lacklustre ending in search of a trap-filled movie to go before it. It's almost Saw-lite, especially when the victims are people with more reason to be judged than a lot of the previous victims in the series.

The second problem is the cast. I quite like Chris Rock. Not for the lead in a Saw movie though. He's not ever convincing as the tough cop who can do right while so many others are doing wrong, and he's not helped by the fact that the script has him actively putting people in danger just because the bodycount needs to rise. Max Minghella, sorry to say, is someone I have never really warmed to, perhaps due to the characters he tends to play. He's okay here, I guess, but that's only because most people would seem better opposite Rock. And you have Samuel L. Jackson in a main supporting role, doing well enough, but also being underused. Nichols has to work her way through "Movie Police Captain Dialogue 101", but I guess she does what is asked of her well enough. And everyone else is there to either be a red herring, a victim, or both.

There are some decent deaths here, which is what you want from any entry in the series, and a couple of moments should make you wince, but it's also fairly muted, in terms of the really nasty intricacies of each trap. None of the attempts to misdirect viewers work (well, they didn't work for me anyway), some characters are built up only to be discarded by the time it gets to the point where Chris Rock must do everything on his own, and there's even a use of the hyper-editing that feels as if it's bordering on parody.

It's nowhere near as bad as the nadir of the series (which will always be Saw IV to me, but I AM overdue a rewatch of the series), but Spiral just feels like an instalment being steered in a number of wrong directions by people who are well-intentioned, but refusing to double-check their instrumentation and maps.

5/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

The Witches (2020)

I was not won over when I saw the trailer for The Witches, a remake of the 1990 Nicolas Roeg film, one of the most legendarily-terrifying movies aimed at kids, adapted from the book by Roald Dahl. It looked as if it had been completely sanitised, and the choice of Anne Hathaway as the main villain seemed like a bit of miscasting.

Well, while it's worth bearing in mind that it has been many years since I last saw the original movie, this ended up being a decent remake/re-adaptation. The biggest problem it has is that it feels quite redundant. I don't recall anyone crying out for another version of the tale, and the film itself, while very competent, and enjoyable, just never gives you anything to make it more worthy of your time than the previous incarnation, which is now 30 years old.

Witches are everywhere. And they hate children. When our young hero (Jahzir Bruno), actually named Hero Boy, and his grandma (Octavia Spencer) head away for a break at a lovely hotel, they don't realise that their timing could not be worse. The hotel is also hosting a meeting for a number of witches, led by the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway). They have a plan for children, and that plan involves turning them into mice. All of them. Our young hero gets caught overhearing this plan, so is immediately mouse-ified, alongside a young man named Bruno Jenkins (Codie-Lei Eastick). Accompanied by a surprise ally, the mice must reach grandma, tell her what is going on, and find out if there's a way to reverse the effects of the potion.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Kenya Barris and Guillermo del Toro, The Witches gets a number of important things right. It keeps things quite scary, especially for younger viewers (parents may want to either check this over beforehand or be prepared for extra-tight cuddles while watching). It transfers the action to 1960s America without losing anything vital to the overall tone or atmosphere. The cast are also a bonus. Bruno does well with his screentime, Spencer is a wonderful grandma, Stanley Tucci is excellent as the hotel manager, and Hathaway is clearly having a lot of fun in her role, complete with an undetermined accent and inability to comprehend people around her who don't give her immediate agreement and compliance. You also get an enjoyable voiceover from Chris Rock.

It's a shame that the main thing it gets wrong is something many can probably guess before even seeing one second of the film. Yes, with Robert Zemeckis at the helm you get an over-reliance on CGI, some of it nicely done and some of it that will make you yearn for some practical effects. I like the depiction of the witches when shown in their natural form (bald, with claws, no toes on their feet, and wide mouths with sharp teeth), but even that serves as a reminder of how great the practical effects were in the 1990 movie. And as for the CGI mice, let's not dwell on those. There's a pretty decent black cat that I was impressed by, and numerous enjoyable little touches here and there, but it's definitely a case of Mr. Zemeckis once again playing with some of his favourite new toys while some old dependables could have worked equally well.

So, unless my memory is blanking out one, we have had three movies in the past decade or so made from Roald Dahl books that had been filmed before. One was quite bad, one was quite good, and now this one sits almost squarely in the middle. I enjoyed it while it was on, but I won't rush to rewatch it, and am now more eager than ever to revisit the version that terrified me when I was young (and I wasn't even that young, being about 15-16 when it was released).

6/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Netflix And Chill: Bee Movie (2007)

Look, I am easily pleased by puns and CGI that is halfway-decent. That means that most modern movies aimed at younger viewers will tend to keep me amused. I'm not always the most mature person in the room, and I am absolutely fine with that. I am fine with being able to sit back and do my best to be open to whatever a movie is trying to provide. But that doesn't mean that I'll just sit there and give everything a free pass, even if it may seem that way sometimes when I am reviewing movies while being more charitable than some.

Bee Movie isn't as bad as you may have heard. It's also not that good. It sits squarely in the middle, hampered by some strange choices in the plotting and voice cast.

Jerry Seinfeld is the voice of Barry B. Benson, a bee who doesn't necessarily want to move straight into his working life when he is deemed ready for it. Despite the protests of his friend, Adam (Matthew Broderick), Barry heads off for a trip into the wider world outside. He then ends up befriending a human named Vanessa (Renée Zellweger), which leads to him finding out the horrible truth about just what happens to all of the honey that the bees make. Something has to be done, but what will the repercussions be?

Directed by Simon J. Smith and Steve Hickner, two men who have a directorial selection composed of more shorts than features (although the latter has a much more extensive selection of projects he has worked on as an artist), this is a strange central concept that is squeezed into a fairly traditional, family-friendly, movie. A lot of people worked on the script, including Seinfeld, and it feels like all of them had a different idea of just what kind of film they were making. Ironically, that makes some of the crazier moments among the most fun, certainly for older viewers (the highlight being a moment in which Ray Liotta is called as a witness in a court case, playing himself).

As much as I like Seinfeld, his voice doesn't feel right for the lead role here, and I'd struggle to think of any animated movie that would work with his particular vocal stylings at the centre of things. Matthew Broderick is better in the role of the best friend who is happy with his lot in life. Zellweger is also good in her role, helping to sell the fact that her character can become firm friends with a bee. But the best work comes from the three people I can enjoy listening to at any time: John Goodman (as a lawyer), Chris Rock (a mosquito), and Patrick Warburton (a human who has his life turned upside down by Barry).

Children should enjoy seeing the world that is created for these bees to be living, and working, in. Adults should enjoy the more random moments, such as that Liotta highlight and a honey-steeped homage to The Graduate. Few people will enjoy the whole thing as a cohesive movie experience, but there are enough moments to amuse and help the runtime pass by painlessly enough. Oh, and the CGI is halfway-decent. Halfway.

5/10

You can buy it here.
Americans can buy it here.

The Week Of (2018)

Okay, first of all, I KNOW a lot of people reading this have already made up their minds about The Week Of. It's a comedy film released on Netflix that stars Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. People will be expecting some wedding shenanigans draped around a plot that feels more like Grown Ups 3. Or they'll be expecting arguments and comedy between Sandler and Rock. Sandler will do a funny voice, he'll do his angry shouty thing, he'll be an average Joe with a ridiculously hot lady in his life and his well-intentioned mishaps will work out well for everyone involved.

Now, hold that thought. Let me run through the very basic plot and we'll come back to this. I promise.

Sandler is Kenny Lustig, the father of a young woman who is about to get married. The young man she is marrying has a rich father (Kirby Cordice, played by Rock) but Sandler wants to assume the usual duties and responsibilities that go with being the father of the bride. Which suits Rock, for the most part, because he's been largely absent from any family duties for a long time. He's a successful surgeon who spends way more time in the company of beautiful women than in the company of his family members. Things start to go wrong, as you may have guessed, and Sandler ends up with pretty much everyone staying in his home on the run up to the big day.

I understand, I do, nothing that I just said in the last paragraph has changed your mind on this one. If anything, I have just reinforced the image of this as a typical Sandler vehicle. And it is a typical Sandler vehicle, in some ways. It's predictable, it allows his flaws to be a positive part of his character, and there are scenes in which he gets shouty and angry.

But in many other ways it's a bit different from the many other Sandler movies we have had throughout the past couple of decades. First of all, the shouty angry moments are behind closed doors, a running joke about Sandler and his wife (played by Rachel Dratch) having brief, big arguments and then coming out to smile at the family and get on with their business. Second, Sandler has a normal-ish family here, and his wife is Rachel Dratch, a pleasant change from him trying to date Drew Barrymore or Jennifer Aniston or any of the other women he has paired himself up with. Third, there are no silly voices and few of the expected gags based around the "oh, boys will be boys" attitude that has permeated almost every other big Sandler comedy. There ARE one or two moments that come close to that (including a stag night sequence) but, overall, this is a film about a dad struggling to make everything perfect for his daughter's big day.

The rest of the cast don't make much of an impression, with the exception of Steve Buscemi, who steals the few scenes that he's in, but the leads are all doing very good work. Dratch and Sandler are a great couple, and very believable together, while Rock has to swan in, be a bit of an ass, and eventually maybe see the error of his ways. Job done.

Director Robert Smigel, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Sandler, does well as the setbacks start to pile up while the wedding day looms ever closer. Minor problems turn into major problems and solutions come and go frequently to ensure that Sandler is never below a very high level of stress. There are even a couple of big laughs, one involving a relative with no legs being taken to the bathroom and one involving Sandler being unable to keep track of the soon-to-be-family members living in his home.

I am going to bravely recommend this film, even to those who tend to hate Sandler. It's not brilliant, it still has him in the lead role (which may be enough to make some viewers unhappy), but both the film and it's star are a lot better than you might expect.

6/10

It's on Netflix so, y'know, no wares to be sold here.

Osmosis Jones (2001)

Osmosis Jones is a standard tale of a reckless cop (Chris Rock) paired up with someone who is a stickler for the rules (David Hyde Pierce). There's an evil villain (Laurence Fishburne) with a plan to go down in history. And lives are at stake, although it is mainly just the one life (belonging to an unhealthy Bill Murray). The big difference here is that the cop is Osmosis Jones, paired up with a medicine named Drix, and the villain is a deadly virus with symptoms that may not be fully recognised until it is too late. And all of this is taking place inside the body of Murray, in animated form.

Directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly, Osmosis Jones is a fun blend of animation and live action (most of the grosser moments involve Murray either helping the virus along or showing some nasty side-effects from the battles raging within him) that is helped by a great voice cast and a lot of wonderful little sight gags, even if they are all fairly obvious puns. It's also quite tame for a film that comes with their names attached, which seems more likely to be down to the script by Marc Hyman. It focuses more on transposing the tropes of a buddy cop action comedy into the setting of a human body than it does on the many potential opportunities for toilet humour.

The animation may be a bit rough around the edges but it does everything it has to do, and that includes some fun scenes that have our main characters depicted in their animated form while the background is the very live Murray (who is also joined onscreen by Molly Shannon, Chris Elliott, and Elena Franklin, who portrays his frustrated daughter).

Rock does very well in the kinda-lead role, his sharp, fast delivery working brilliantly alongside the smooth and deliberate tone of Pierce. Fishburne, voice matched by the character design, oozes threat and menace with his every line, and there are fun supporting turns from William Shatner, Brandy Norwood, and Ron Howard.

The idea of our bodies being regulated and looked after by small humanoid entites isn't a new one (and it's one that can keep delivering great entertainment when done the right way, as it was with Inside Out) and nothing here feels too original, which is probably the biggest problem that the film has. Overlook the sense of the familiar, however, and you will find an absolute little cracker of a film, one that was unjustly neglected when first released, and remains sorely overlooked nowadays. Seek it out, give it your time, and you may well find that you enjoy it almost as much as I do.

8/10

Osmosis Jones can be absorbed in exchange for cash here.
Americans can get it streaming into their homes here (but on disc, not just . . . streaming).

Down To Earth (2001)

Chris Rock stars in this remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, a film already revisited a couple of times before this outing, with sadly underwhelming results. The material has some added jokes about race, and creates potential for some bigger laughs by making the main character a struggling stand-up comic, but it ends up falling flat far more often than it succeeds.

Rock is Lance Barton, a young, funny guy who just can't seem to transfer that humour to his stage act. Yet he keeps trying. His main venue is going to be closing soon, which makes him desperate for one last shot to win over the audience there. Unfortunately, his plans are thrown into disarray when he's hit by a truck. It's all a big mistake, which an angel named Keyes (Eugene Levy) only realises when Lance is already in heaven. While they try to resolve the situation, Lance is offered a "loaner" body by King (Chazz Palminteri), another heavenly being who seems to be in charge. That body ends up being one that belonged to a wealthy, white businessman named Charles Wellington, III (Brian Rhodes). Lance has to use the body to pursue his quest for a spot at the upcoming stand-up event, while avoiding the dangerous scheming of Wellington's wife (Jennifer Coolidge), and his assistant (Greg Germann). And things become more complicated when he falls in love with Sontee Jenkins (Regina King), who hates him.

Down To Earth is a very frustrating film to watch. You can see moments when it might be able to step up a notch or two, when it could let Chris Rock rant and make the most of his power as a comedian. Sadly, those moments do nothing more than get close to something good before sinking back down to mediocrity.

The cast includes some great performers, especially in the supporting roles. Levy and Palminteri are both great fun as the angels trying to correct a terrible mistake, Coolidge does well with her usual mix of ditzy and wannabe-sexy, and Germann works very well alongside her. Mark Addy does okay as a perplexed butler, while Wanda Sykes steals a couple of scenes as a housekeeper who does very little to hide her disdain for her employer. Even John Cho raises a smile or two, despite his role amounting to little more than a cameo. Regina King is easy to like, and Frankie Faison is very likable as the manager who continues to see the best in Lance. The weakest link, unfortunately, is Rock. He seems neutered, at best, and just stilted and awkward, for the most part.

Directors Chris and Paul Weitz don't seem to put in any effort at all, while the script (co-written by about four people, including Rock and Louis C.K.) reeks of similar laziness during the many moments that aren't comedic. The love story angle just never feels real, despite the efforts that everyone goes to in order to make viewers forget that Regina King is supposed to be enjoying time with an elderly, white businessman.

It's actually a shame that this was such a missed opportunity, a star vehicle created around someone who never seemed comfortable as a leading man. I love Chris Rock, but I don't think his style and energy work when being forced into a package like this. Thankfully, we can always revisit him in the greatness that is Osmosis Jones.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Down-Earth-Chris-Rock/dp/B00005JH9O/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1406542627&sr=1-2&keywords=down+to+earth

Sgt. Bilko (1996)

It's never a good idea to take a beloved comedy icon and try to put your own spin on it, but Steve Martin doesn't seem to care about the risks involved. In fact, some might say that he took an even bigger chance when he took over the role of Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther movies, but there's no denying that a LOT of people loved both the character of Sgt. Bilko and the actor who originally played him, Phil Silvers.

Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko (Martin) is a fast-talking, fast-thinking conman and gambler who has managed to spend years in the army without getting in trouble for any of his mad schemes and money-making operations. That looks as if it could change when he's assigned a new man to his company, Pfc. Wally Holbrook (Daryl Mitchell), just before the arrival of Major Colin Thorn (Phil Hartman) and the two people that he has brought along to perform an exhaustive audit of everything that Bilko is responsible for. If there is one item of stock missing, one dollar in the wrong place or one shred of evidence showing that he is up to mischief then Bilko will end up out on his ear, to put it mildly. He also needs to buck up his ideas and find time to marry his long-suffering fiance, Rita Robbins (Glenne Headly).

Full of ridiculous moments of near-farce, great dialogue and fun characters, Sgt. Bilko is a movie that I have always liked since first seeing it, and always felt that others didn't really give a chance. Martin is no Phil Silvers, but he's not trying to be. He's just mixing his own comedy persona with the character of Bilko, and it works.

The direction from Jonathan Lynn is unspectacular, but that's something that can be said for pretty much every film that he's ever helmed. He's competent with comedy material, and has been in charge of a couple that I really like, but the strength usually lies in the scripts that he's working from. Luckily, this one (written by Andy Breckman) is a goodie, full of energy and laugh out loud moments.

As well as Martin shining in the lead role, the likes of Headly and Hartman put in some wonderful work. Dan Aykroyd is particularly enjoyable as the Colonel who always suspects Bilko of being up to something but also likes just having him around. Daryl Mitchell may not have the best role, but he's enjoyable enough as the wide-eyed newbie learning all of Bilko's tricks from his first moment in the company. Chris Rock and Cathy Silvers are good fun as the auditors, and Max Casella, Eric Edwards (most memorable as Pvt. Doberman) and Pamela Segall are all worthy folk to be in cahoots with their scheming leader.

It would be wrong of me to assume that lots of people disliked Sgt. Bilko because it wasn't exactly as they wanted it to be and it wasn't the old Bilko, but I can't help feeling that there was certainly a bit of a cloud over this movie as soon as it was announced. And I get it, especially when a TV show or movie is updating an old, much-loved slice of classic TV. I also get that good things can come out of such developments. Some people think that in an ideal world we'd have no remakes or sequels proving the law of diminishing returns, but that ideal world would also see us missing out on some GREAT (in fact, I'll say it, CLASSIC) movies. Sgt. Bilko isn't a classic, but it's a cracking comedy for those who like the cast and enjoy their comedy with funny lines flying thick and fast through every scene.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Steve-Martin-Collection-DVD/dp/B000QJMSFA/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1374361378&sr=1-1&keywords=steve+martin