And next month, I’ll be reviewing The Love Bug because it stars
Bruce Campbell. Deal with it.
Bug Hall (from The Stupids—one of those movies that everyone hates except me) stars as Scout, a rambunctious John Walsh-crazed kid who wants to join the title gang of helpful little rugrats. The only problem is that Scout is terribly accident-prone, so much so that when he does make it to the squad after a member is run over by a runaway giant goldfish, principal Kurtwood Smith sends him off to another school to avoid an impending explosion.
His new digs are friendly enough, and he quickly meets friends, including a showtune-obsessed kid, another accident-prone kid, and a chocolate-obsessed tyke obviously descended from Curtis Armstrong’s parts in Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer. Armstrong himself shows up as the school’s janitor, who’s in league with his mother and head lunchlady (Lainie Kazan in a scenery-chewing spectacle) to steal from the school and sell product on the black market. They do this by going through, natch, the school’s evil safety patrol, led by the principal’s son.
Of course, Scout’s trying to do the good thing, so the evil patrol members frame him for theft. Then “Weird Al” Yankovic shows up to save the day.
There are a whole lot of classic Holland touches on display. A zombie frog runs amok, a camera-crazed dad named Zapruder films everything he sees, and there’s even a little Reservoir Dogs reference. Leslie Neilson’s top billing amounts to little more than a cameo, in which he bumbles around and falls out a building on what is by now actor’s autopilot.
Unfortunately, it’s all a bit too much. I don’t want to place any blame here, but what the heck happened to Holland’s sense of subtlety? Everyone trips over each other to such extremes, accompanied by loud “boing” sound effects, and with three accident-prone characters (!) running around, there’s a lot of “boing”ing to be had.
It can all be summed up in one little shot. Kazan and Armstrong are talking to a kid. Kazan insults Armstrong off-handedly, and Armstrong replies “yeah!” Naturally, this is followed by Armstrong with a “hey, wait a minute..” expression on his face. Instead of keeping both of them in frame as Kazan continues to talk while Armstrong’s reaction takes place, we cut to Armstrong. Why? Why film an extra shot that just deflates the humor?
Did the execs at Disney look at the film and go, “We like it, but it needs more zaniness. Make it zanier. And add some attitude. Make it pro-active”?
The acting is a bit of a worry as well. All the adults are fine, but the kids range from mediocre to “I really hope this was a backer’s son because I can’t believe anyone actually auditioned this whelp.” Bug Hall tries, but Holland is obviously more used to writing for teenagers (and teenagers in their early 20’s at that), so he doesn’t really pull it off. The Leslie Nielsonish traits of Scout’s character don’t help any—John Cusack’s characters were dreamers, but they weren’t oblivious to their surroundings like Scout obviously is.
Safety Patrol is very much a Savage Steve Holland film (albeit without the token bits of animation. What gives?). It is also, unfortunately, very much a “Wonderful World of Disney” film and the styles mix like oil and vinegar. It’s not because it’s a kids film that I don’t like it (I’m a big Good Burger backer, and a big “Pete and Pete” fan), it’s because it’s a really odd kids film, but not a really good one. As much as I wanted to like a movie that featured “Weird Al” (who sings “Lump”), Curtis Armstrong, Wink Martindale and, for some off reason, Charlene Tilton, I just couldn’t quite do it.
Oh well. We’ll always have Better Off Dead.