The Jet Benny Show

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.

Questions come up about this movie from Jack Benny fans from time to time. I have to say that I could never, in good conscience, recommend this movie to them. Someone had an idea that they (and, apparently, the cast and crew) thought was funny: to do a Star Wars take-off with a flamingly gay Jack Benny in the lead role, Rochester as an android, and the Maxwell as their spaceship. But it comes off as one of those inside jokes that must be funny to them, but simply doesn't make any sense to the rest of us (including devotees of the real Jack Benny).

I brought it to the house of a friend who is a long-time Jack Benny and science fiction fanatic, and the concept made him laugh uproariously. But we had to turn it off after 10 minutes because we just couldn't take it.

If you're a Jack Benny fan that thrives on the very strange (and/or regularly indulges in regulated substances), you can see if your local video store has a copy for rent. I got mine from Reel. Otherwise, rent "The Horn Blows at Midnight"...it's a much better movie.

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.

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.