Il maestro cambiafaccia

`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.

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.

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.

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.

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