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.

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 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.