The Jet Benny Show

This space-age spoof is a must for fans of Jack Benny. Jet Benny is a relaxed, slow-paced spaceman, much like Jack's character in the movies. The trouble is that Jack surrounded himself with wonderful characters to play off of, such as Phil, Don, etc. Jet has Rochester, and Princess, but it's not enough to satisfy most tastes.

Just like torture, this movie does not work. More specifically, it -is- torture and it doesn't work. 10 minutes into the movie, we shut it off and took it back, it was so horrible.

The main character must have said "Robchester, stop that" about a hundred times in just a few minutes. The concept is mildly amusing but there's the minor matters of the script, direction, acting, editing, sound, etc., which all stink.

If you are looking for a movie for a "Bad Movie Night", this is not it as it is not even unintentionally funny.

If you are looking for something to torture your worst enemy, this is cruel and unusual punishment. If death is too good for them, show them this movie.

Did I mention this is a bad movie with no redeeming qualities?

While a few of the jokes in this do land, to describe the comedy as hit and miss would be to give far too much credence to those very few hits. I admit that I'm not intimately familiar with the work of Jack Benny and came at this more from a Kenneth Williams fan's point of view, but to compare either is an injustice. This film doesn't have the wit or timing of either actor and is at times a gruelling experience to sit through. The fact that it's so short is a mercy, don't get me wrong, but boy oh boy it shoulda been shorter! I get the references, I appreciate the nods but this film does nothing inventive, nothing new and nothing that hasn't been done better elsewhere. It's hard to see a reason to watch this (out of anything other than curiosity) in a world post-Spaceballs and post Flash Gordon. If you want campy Star Wars-esque fun, just stick with what works, cos this does not.

There was a good idea at the heart of this movie. Jack Benny used to do parody sketches based on movies and stories on his show. What if he had done a parody of Star Wars? That would have been okay as a sketch on a TV show, the same length as Benny's sketches. That's the heart of the error in this film: trying to make it a full-length movie. Not only did the filmmaker have to create a pastiche of an "evil space empire" with no relation to Lucas's creation, but he had to have the Jack Benny character appear on screen for a long time. The actor, Steve Norman, did a passable Benny impression. But it started getting tiring after a few minutes.

Some people have noted that the Benny character seemed gay. This was a persistent rumor during the real Benny's life, mostly because his peculiar walk seemed feminine. This apparent gayness, as shown by Norman, is about all a viewer can focus on in this movie, since all the other qualities Benny was known for - the slow burn, the supposed miserliness, the egotism, the bad violin playing - weren't referenced at all. The central bit of Benny business - the song played throughout the film called "All By Myself," a self-pity song vaguely resembling Benny's theme "Love in Bloom" - is wrong, since Benny nearly never sang as a performer.

Someday, someone may make a great film putting a Jack Benny-like character in an adventure movie. Before they do it, they had better see this film, and do a lot more research and thought about what made Jack Benny what he was.

Would you like to watch the cast of the 1959 Jack Benny parody an early 80s space opera like Flash Gordon or the Star Wars series? With Jack throwing in a few of his trademark catch phrases such as 'Well' or I'm thinking'?

It's a fun idea. Unfortunately, only a dozen or so gags land and this sort of exercise needs a high laugh count to avoid becoming tedious. The bargain basement production values are a distraction too, since an 80s audience was used to better. The result is an unsatisfying answer to a what if question. Better writing might have made the cheap look more forgivable, and alternatively a more polished production might have gotten away with this few chuckles. The cast try hard but there is not a lot of acting business to be done on this low a budget. The fight staging is also distractingly bad, and worse it reminds us that bad action scenes are worse than none. Could the Zucker brothers, fresh off a hit with Top Secret, have been able to pull this idea off? I wish we got a chance to find out.