Duro de Espiar

Dick Steele, Agent WD-40 (Leslie Nielsen) is assigned by his director (Charles Durning), to stop the evil General Rancor (Andy Griffith) from destroying the world. WD-40 believed Rancor was dead and he teams up with the hot KGB agent Veronique Ukrinsky (Nicollette Sheridan) to find Rancor and save the world.

The brainless "Spy Hard" is another spoof with Leslie Nielsen in the lead role in the same style of "Naked Gun". There are gags with James Bond films, "Speed" an "Home Alone". Unfortunately the style of Jim Abrahams and David Zucker is only reasonable and the film is not as funny as should be. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Duro de Espiar" ("Hard to See")

From the same mold as the "Naked Gun" series, "Spy Hard" stars everyone's favorite bumbling hero Leslie Nielson as a not-so-secret agent, WD-40, who stumbles his way through another slampooning chaotic comic story. Sniping at everything from "Speed" to "Home Alone" and built around the James Bond flicks, "Spy Hard" features lots of babes and bunches of bit part celebs with nonstop gags and off-the-wall humor. Only for those who are into wacky for the sake of wacky. (C+)

The dopey, deadpan character sculptured by Leslie Nielsen is back in a "James Bond-esque" comedy as agent WD 40. There are more gag misfires in this movie, than a parking lot full of dead batteries. However, he's such a likeable guy, you can make it over the hump.

Unfortunately, with the exit of the mad geniuses (The Zucker Bros. & Jim Abrahms), there's little here in this script to wave the pom-poms about. It's all been done too many times before.

Of honourable mention is a priceless, very quick cameo with Pat Morita, which is an absolute gem. There are other assorted scenarios that came off well, too. See it if you must on a rainy Sunday, but this is pretty old, borrowed and blue.

It seems that many James Bond parody movies have been made through the decades since the character was introduced to the silver screen in the early '60s. I haven't seen all of these spoofs, but of the ones I have seen, some of them are funny (like they're obviously supposed to be), and others not so much. Unfortunately, "Spy Hard" is one of the latter. It's not a complete disaster, but a disappointing film in the spoof genre nonetheless, with very little to be remembered by.

Dick Steele, Agent WD-40 is a retired secret agent. However, he is lured out of retirement when General Rancor, an old foe of his, has plans to destroy the world, and Steele is assigned to stop him! On his mission, Steele is joined by Veronique Ukrinsky, a young Russian agent, and together, they must make their way to General Rancor's lair! On their way, many challenges await!

The most amusing and memorable part of this movie is "Weird Al" Yankovic's theme song, a parody of James Bond themes. That song was what lead me to watch "Spy Hard", seeing its sequence from this movie in "'Weird Al' Yankovic: The Ultimate Video Collection". So, in other words, I had already seen the best part of the movie by the time I saw the whole thing. The rest of the movie is nothing special. I lightly snickered at the part when a light tap on the shoulder leads to a fist fight, but for the rest of the film, I didn't laugh at all. Aside from James Bond, several other films are also parodied, but not parodied very well. Basically, "Spy Hard" just has one mediocre gag after another, and not too many are worth mentioning. It's all extremely silly, and not in a good way.

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer were writers for this 1996 spy spoof, and since then, they've definitely gone on to do much worse! It appears they started out mediocre (looking at "Spy Hard"), and their more recent work is a crime against humanity, proving they should not be in the comedy business! So, "Spy Hard" isn't the worst film that Friedberg and Seltzer had something to do with (it might even be the best!), but it's still not worth it, if you ask me, and I know many would agree, since it has such a low rating. Fortunately, "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery", another silly James Bond spoof, but a far superior one, was released the year after this forgettable flop.

Although I am a big Leslie Nielsen fan, you don't have to even know who he is to laugh hysterically at this one. First of all, I love the feel of this movie. The Secret Service headquarters is just full of secret crannies where weirdos are hiding. Especially the director's office. You always find something goofy hidden in there. In addition to Nielsen's trademark spotlight-stealing sight gags, there are many subtle insults, including the use of the Disney Animation Studio façade as the establishing exterior shot of the Agency headquarters (you can see the Seven Dwarfs in the architecture), and the fact that Agent 3.14, in addition to her number being pi, speaks with a huge French accent, even though she's Russian. I particularly love the character of Coleman. I always laugh when he sees the Rancor tape and utters a Bostonese "Gooed Gwad!". The characters are great in this. There is Steele's trusty sidekick Kabul (who has a different car in every scene), and Andy Griffith is an excellent villain. One of the best parts of this movie is Weird Al Yankovic's opening title song (spoofing Thunderball's).

For goodness' sakes, rent it if you haven't seen it yet. WATCH FOR THOSE CAMEOS!