मास्टर ऑफ़ डिस्काइज़

i'm in my early 30s and i thought it was funny. it's certainly not on par with the brilliant comedies made by monty python, but it's much better than 95% of the PG-13 garbage that continues to be released.

it was refreshing to see a PG comedy that wasn't centered around children. i really liked the gammy num nums disguise, and i wish they had been able to work the Mayor Maynot disguise in the movie along with the painting guy. thankfully they were both on the DVD.

i've watched it twice now, and will watch it again. dana talked (on a DVD featurette) about how he originally wanted to make a mission impossible type comedy with the master of disguise being part of the team, so maybe he'll go to back to that for a sequel; although, it seems unlikely since the first seems to be rather unpopular.

6/10

I rarely comment on movies, but when I see one getting such a bad rap.... I rented this for my 2 kids ages 8 and 12, and watched it with them and my wife. We all enjoyed it, and my kids have watched it several times since. It is obvious from the get go that this is a "goofy" movie, and it succeeds greatly as such. You can see the gags coming, but that only adds to the anticipation, as the goofiness is delivered in spades. We all loved Turtleman, and many of the other nutty characters invented by Dana. It is so difficult to find a family movie that we all can enjoy, that is harmless fun, with no scariness, no mom getting killed (a la Disney), no kidnapping, etc, etc. Only wish there was a sequel!

Sheer genius cannot even begin to properly address this cinematic achievement, to call it any less is an insult. Dana Carvey, on the surface, plays a bumbling Italian waiter who inherits the power of disguise; however, if you dig a bit deeper & peel away the layers, you'll find a motion picture which is a scathing, yet biting social political statement on society as a whole. One cannot begin to hopefully comprehend or decipher all the psychological & stereotypical boundaries this film breaks. It is a surprise to find this film in mainstream theaters as a film on this level & caliber would normally only be found in the finest arthouse theaters. If you plan on seeing Master of Disguise, I suggest keeping your afternoon free, as after viewing, no after witnessing it, you'll need the rest of the afternoon to invest in deciphering the dense narrative. Admittingly some of the jokes were over my head, but all truly great comedies take a bit of effort for comprehension. Only for serious film viewers & students of the artform as a whole.

Oh my! "Opportunity Knocks" and "Clean Slate" were not exactly film classics, although compared to this movie, they may as well have been works of Shakespeare. Arguably the dumbest movie I have ever paid money to see in theatre (thanks to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" being sold out), this does not fit in the dumb but funny category of most of Adam Sandler's or Chris Farley's films, but in the jaw-droppingly dumb category. My wife and I often gazed at each other in amazement during this movie, unable to exactly process that something this truly silly and dumb was made (much less by Dana Carvey and Adam Sandler) and even stranger that others in the crowded theatre were laughing their heads off! We were excited to see Dana Carvey back in the movies, but there was good reason why this movie was not screened for review ahead of time.

To continue, I should say we had misgivings about seeing the film after the TV trailers that kept showing the "turtle" sequence, but decided that part was just silly fun and there's no way the rest of the movie could be so unclever and dumb. To our amazement, that was easily the most intelligent and serious part of the film! Think carefully before wasting your time with this one.. I score it a generous 3/10.

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