Nos mudamos

this movie is very funny. it's second only to see no evil hear no evil for richard pryor's funniest movie. i have watched moving since 1989. i never really get tired of it.

everything that could go wrong while moving does for pryor in this movie,and more. it's an hilarious movie. i give moving *** out of ****

One in a string of latter-day disappointments from Richard Pryor, "Moving" suffers most of all from an extremely weak script. It's a hodge-podge of half-baked comic ideas that are rarely taken to their potentially hilarious conclusion. Pryor looks trapped and ill-at-ease as a family man. Randy Quaid has some choice moments as the menacing "neighbor from hell," but Dana Carvey's part as a schizoid who applies to drive Pryor's car to his new location is too brief and under-developed.

There are a few laughs, but you'll more than likely be left wanting more than you'll get here. "Silver Streak," "Stir Crazy," or any of Pryor's concert films have MUCH more laughs than this film here.

Moving is a lightweight R-rated comedy featuring Richard Pryor as Arlo Pear. He's an engineer who loses his job in a merger but finds a new job that requires him to move from New Jersey to Boise, Idaho.

However, his family isn't happy about the move, especially his daughter Casey (Stacey Dash) because she wants to graduate first before leaving.

They do move and it seems Murphy's Law hits Arlo over and over again. From hiring a deranged man to drive his Saab to Boise, to criminal moving men, to buying a house in Boise from a crazy old man, it seems Arlo's mental state is being tested to see if it will break.

Moving seemingly would work great as a family film as it has that Cosby Show feel to it but for some strange reason they chose to make it an R- rated film and stunt its box office potential.

Regardless, Pryor is in good form here and seeing him react to his worsening luck over and over again is fun stuff. Randy Quaid also shines as his neighbor and deranged ex-Vietnam vet Frank Crawford, who childishly abuses Arlo. There are some cool small roles from the likes of Rodney Dangerfield and pro wrestler King Kong Bundy, as well.

Not the best Richard Pryor comedy out there but a good one and a lot better than the critics at the time opined. I just wonder how much better it would have been, critically and financially, if it were a PG film.

Moving should be rated higher! This movie's premise is great as it turns the act of moving into an absolute hilarity!! Family moves from New Jersey to Boise Idaho! You just know plenty of wacky hijinks are gonna occur!

I really think anyone who has ever experienced moving from one type of place to a completely different one, or anyone who just has had frustrations with moving in general will be able to relate. Nothing offensive about it, just plain good comedy, pretty fun to watch.

In the '80s Richard Pryor jumped the shark with THE TOY, which kicked off a string of forgettable films. Ranging from awful (SUPERMAN III) to merely mediocre (CRITICAL CONDITION), his Reagan-Bush output didn't produce anything decent until he reteamed with Gene Wilder for 1989's SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL (which, granted, was no classic).

MOVING wasn't his worst movie, but it certainly didn't help his career. Playing a meek suburbanite, Pryor's raw comedic persona was castrated with a silly name (Arlo Pear???) and a bland, inoffensive script. Watch him in this movie and note how defeated he appears. In a decade Pryor went from STIR CRAZY and BLUE COLLAR to a feature-length sitcom that could have starred anybody.

That's not to say MOVING is without merits. It provided Dana Carvey with his funniest role that didn't co-star Mike Myers, and Randy Quaid (a good actor who can do comedy as opposed to a good comedian) earns a lot of laughs here in a dual role.

But the efforts of the supporting cast are wasted by a script that should have gone through more re-writes. A comedy about moving your family across the country could find a lot of humor in the small but countless frustrations that can happen when undertaking such a challenge. Instead of wringing laughs from human foibles, here we've got stupid professional movers who do things to be funny, therefore making what they do unfunny. That old guy wrapping every toy separately? The other guys breaking furniture and taking a side trip to New Orleans? It's dumb, and not believable, and not funny. (However, Carvey acts like he's in a whole 'nother--and better--comedy. I gotta admit: his shtick in drag was hilarious.)

The movie has structural problems too. It spends half the movie packing their things and dealing with the slob neighbor, and -- bam! -- it jumps to the family's new home. What happened during the 3000-mile drive to get there? Did the kids get on the parent's nerves while cooped up in the back seat the whole time? Surely there are possible cross-country mishaps that weren't already explored in NAT'L LAMPOON'S VACATION, right?

(One minor thing. What road did they take out of Jersey? They're on some blacktop with a sign stating they're leaving the Garden State. Um, don't they have to cross the Delaware River to enter Pennsylvania?)

And I wonder if a black family from Jersey would assimilate so easily in suburban Idaho. Since anybody could have been cast in the role, was this movie written with Pryor in mind? Doesn't seem so, since this family is white in every way except skin color. Their closest friends are an elderly white couple, and their daughter, played by Stacey Dash, appears to have blue eyes (leading me to believe she should have been cast instead as a Wannabe in Spike Lee's SCHOOL DAZE). Forgive me for raising racial issues in a lightweight '80s comedy, but wouldn't this affluent black family from the East Coast have any reservations about relocating to Aryan Nation? A 1990 census shows that Idaho was over 94% Caucasian while Blacks made up less than one percent around the time the movie was made. (American Indians, at 1.3%, were more represented.) Wouldn't this have been a factor in their decision to move there?

Finally, for a movie that's barely ninety minutes long, MOVING coughs and wheezes to the closing credits. It somehow feels both overlong and too short, if that makes sense. And there's a chase scene to wrap things up. A chase scene to end a bad comedy? What else is new?