Meister der Verwandlung

`The Master of Disguise' raises – and indeed answers – the question of whether or not it is possible for a movie that bills itself as a `comedy' to run from beginning to end without offering a single funny moment. (The answer, by the way, is, yes, it can be done). Thus, while his `Wayne's World' partner, Mike Myers, is out there making both a fortune and an indelible impression on pop culture with his `Austin Powers' franchise, poor Dana Carvey is reduced to appearing in disastrous vehicles like this one. Now don't get me wrong. I love Carvey's work on `Saturday Night Live,' especially his impersonations of many of the major political figures of our time. However, Carvey's manic, over-the-top style is, apparently, a whole lot easier to take in small doses. Watching him mug, cavort and pratfall his way through a laughless script for the better part of an hour and a half ultimately becomes as wearying as it is embarrassing to watch.

Stealing much of its concept from `The Mask,' `The Master of Disguise' involves Carvey in some nonsense about a family of crime fighters who are able to magically don all sorts of disguises at a moment's notice. This allows the filmmakers to enlist the aid of a number of real life celebrities who end up making cameo appearances, in the misguided belief, most likely, that this was going to be a fun, entertaining movie comedy. Boy, were they misled. Actually, I have rarely seen a film in which the jokes, `bits' and setups fall as consistently flat as they do here. To get a general notion of the level of humor in this film, please note that the running gag involves one character's tendency towards uncontrollable flatulence. It isn't funny the first time it happens and, believe me, it is even less funny the fourth, fifth (or is it sixth?) time around.

In addition to the celebrity walk-ons (Bo Derek, Jesse Ventura, Paula Abdul, among others), Harold Gould, James Brolin, Jennifer Espinoto, Brent Spiner and Edie McClurg are all good sports who deserve better material than what they have been handed here. So is Carvey when you come right down to it. But then Carvey wrote the screenplay, so he HAS to be a good sport about it. After all, he handed HIMSELF this material. I hope the other actors trapped in this mess at least got paid well for their endeavors.

The only good news is that, in the closing credits, we get to see many of the scenes, lines and characters that were, apparently, filmed, then dropped from the final product. One can only imagine how much worse the film would have been had they all been allowed to stay in.

I have to say, I'm a little dissapointed that everyone's ripping this movie to pieces. Granted... the story makes very little sense (this didn't seem to stop Austin Powers 3 from getting rave reviews), but you know what? So what? This film is a fast-paced kid's movie and there's only one reason to see it: Dana Carvey. He's absolutely brilliant. He creates one of his best characters ever (The Turtle) and does some of his best impersonations ever as well (Robert Shaw from "Jaws" was a personal highlight of mine.)

When I saw this film, everyone in the theater laughed the whole way through. This is a film that will completely go over your head if you try to intellectualize it. It's just good, dumb fun. It reminds me a bit of those really insane 60s comedies, except that it's for kids. I have a feeling that this film will come to be appreciated over time on video and tv.

...but it wasn't. It had cameos almost as good as "Goldmember". It has a babe as babe-esque as "Men in Black II." And though it did have a running fart gag, it wasn't as gagging as Fat Bastard's. It was...well, restrained. Dana Carvey wasn't doing Jerry Lewis. His character actually was trainable and actually could take care of himself, push come to shove. And that was worth an extra point up the rating scale.

Dana Carvey was very smart for bringing a movie to the screen like this. Barely ever to SNL veterans do family comedys, but Dana Carvey(SNL, Wayne's World) did. This movie is a bit kiddish in the jokes at times, but it has it's moments. The audience in the screening of this film laughed at a lot of hidden adult jokes, like the Geoge Bush stuff(in SNL, Dana Carvey used to impersonate the elder Bush, in MASTER OF DISGUISE, at one point he does the new Bush). Anyway, even though I doubt very much it'll do first at the box office(my theory will be goldmember, or a very close SIGNS at 1st, and Master of disguise 3rd), I'm still glad Dana could make a great kids movie, without a lot of unneccesary things in films that give it a PG-13 rating. There are a lot of films that would be great family movies, that are loaded with PG-13 material. I'm not saying all the movies should be family, I just hate when there is a really stupid kid movie, I mean take Stuart Little 1 or 2, which could be rated g, and right at the end of the first they throw in language, to give it a pg rating. They didn't even have to do that. Same with pg movies jipped to pg-13. Sometimes you don't need to do it, moviemakers, when it clearly is a kids movie, and filmmakers try to throw in things to make it pg13, when it's kiddish, and no teen's going to go see it anyway, so they're stuck with 6 year olds, going to see pg-13s! I hope that more people realize, that some movies are adult, and some are family. Don't throw things in family movies that don't need to be there, just in hopes of getting older audiences. They're still not going to go see it. But take my advice. See master of disguise, either in theaters, or on video. I saw the screening a few weeks ago, and I did laugh. Not a whole lot, but I laughed.

2.5/5 STARS

I found this movie quite enjoyable, and certainly not deserving of the 3 point whatever rating it has. I don't know what most of the voters were expecting, it was obviously a family movie, and I appreciated that. There was no graphic violence, just some slapping, nor were there any sex references, nor any inappropriate jokes (the flatulence jokes were a bit overdone).

The movie was humorous, nothing gut busting, but it had enough funny parts to keep me smiling or chuckling the whole time. There were no real lulls or low points, just a nice even keel.

This movie is middle of the road. I give it a 5 out of 10.