(Originally published in The Gleaner of Rutgers University-Camden.)
The Flintstones
**1/2
It seems that every popular TV show of the sixties has made it in one form or another to the entertainment world in the eighties and nineties. I Dream of Jeannie? Perry Mason? TV reunion movies. The Beverly Hillbillies? The Fugitive? Theatrical releases. What’s next, The Mod Squad? Even the Smothers Brothers attempted a comeback with a variety show not too long ago. And now, having seemingly exhausted our supply of live-action shows, we scrape the bottom of the proverbial barrel and come up with a full-length, live-action, feature film based on a cartoon from the sixties.
The film does about as well as one might expect from anything with cartoon ancestry, which is a thinly veiled way of saying that if one lowers one’s expectations accordingly, one will not be overly disappointed. Which is to say that The Flintstones is no Fugitive, but it beats The Beverly Hillbillies by a ton.
If you’re concerned about a semblance of a plot, it goes something like this: Fred Flinstone (played by the indomitable John Goodman) finds himself promoted from low-man-at-the-quarry to a bigshot position upstairs as an executive of some sort. He’s put there as a patsy by slimy no-account Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks), who, along with his alluring secretary Sharon Stone (Halle Berry), plans to dupe poor ol’ Fred into firing the quarryworkers and replacing them with machines. Naturally, it’s up to Fred to save the day. Ho-hum.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, the main focus of this film is not its deep plotline. The endearing performances (including a flavorful one by Elizabeth Taylor as Fred’s shrewish mother-in-law), the meticulous set design (which comes very close to the old show’s detailed work, and adds such modern conveniences as a ATM), and a general feeling of let’s-all-have-some-fun-here all make for some good solid entertainment, especially for kids.
Little Big League
**1/2
An 11-year-old boy inherits the Minnesota Twins from his grandfather (Jason Robards), and names himself manager to the perennial losers. Of course, the team is loath to have him as their new skipper, but don’t fret; they all come around eventually.
Similar in plot to last year’s Rookie of the Year, Little Big League has a few things going for it, such as excellent baseball scenes (with real-life players in their real-life uniforms), and fine character support. Timothy Busfield (Thirtysomething) is warm and funny as the team’s thirdbaseman, who has a crush on the boy’s mother. Jonathan Silverman is a young, chatty (read: obnoxious) pitcher with heart and verve.
The problem lies in the central casting of Luke Edwards as the boy owner/manager. Edwards, unlike Thomas Ian Nicholas’ Henry in Rookie, is morose and way too serious for the role. You’ll strain looking for a sustained instance in which Edwards smiles. There is no carefree atmosphere, no boyish enthusiasm, just depressing adult-talk — from a kid! This is good for the little ones, but nothing magical; it’s nothing that we haven’t seen in Rookie or in 1994’s Angels in the Outfield.
With Honors
**
You don’t know how badly I wanted to give this film another star. I mean, look at the cast. Joe Pesci. Brendan Fraser. Moira Kelly. Patrick Dempsey. These are certified appealing actors, with fine resumes all. And the plot seems entertaining enough, with bum Pesci (who lives in the boiler room at Harvard University) ransoming Fraser’s senior thesis for food and shelter. And with Fraser, Kelly, and Dempsey (along with Josh Hamilton) co-existing in an apartment, you’d have to figure there’d be some romance there somewhere.
But the problem with the film is that there’s no there there. It’s a one-dimensional look at the situation of the homeless, with a dollop of asbestos controversy tossed in like croutons on a salad. The actors all do their jobs well, but there is little cohesion and fewer laughs in what could have been uproarious. In fact, Dempsey, who hosts a radio show on campus, gets some of the movie’s best lines. Pesci tries to teach his new friends about life, but ends up teaching the audience a new method for curing insomnia.
