{"id":6739,"date":"2024-10-25T10:31:33","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6739"},"modified":"2024-10-25T10:31:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:31:33","slug":"in-the-army-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/in-the-army-now\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Army Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In the Army Now <\/strong>(1994)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hollywood\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (some war action, mild language, comic sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Daniel Petrie Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ken Kaufman, Stu Krieger, Daniel Petrie Jr., Fax Bahr and Adam Small\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Robert Folk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: William Wages\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 12, 1994 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Pauly Shore, Lori Petty, David Alan Grier, Andy Dick, Esai Morales, Lynn Whitfield, Art LaFleur, Fabiana Udenio, Glenn Morshower, Beau Billingslea, Peter Spellos.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $28.8M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0I can\u2019t claim that I was ever a big fan of Pauly Shore, but I sure enjoyed Encino Man and Son in Law a hell of a lot more than In the Army Now<\/strong>, a lame comedy that finds the MTV funnyman enlisting in the Army thinking the Reserves will be a cake walk. \u201cOne weekend a month, two weeks a year\u201d, how easy is that? Uh, it\u2019s the Army. Being all you can be takes a bit more effort than you think.<\/p>\n

\u00a0You don\u2019t even have to see In the Army Now<\/strong> to know exactly what it is. It\u2019s a blatant rip-off of Stripes with its story of two slackers looking to improve their lot in life by signing up for the military. Only instead of Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, you get Shore and Andy Dick (NewsRadio) as Bones and Jack, two addle-brained idiots with dreams of opening their own electronics store. All they need is money. Believing the Army Reserves is their best option, they sign up only to learn it\u2019s not easy money. I guess they never heard of basic training.<\/p>\n

\u00a0They make it through basic in only a few minutes of screen time during which Bones goes from being a complete screw-up to a model soldier even earning a promotion to Private First Class. They choose water purification as their field thinking they\u2019ll never be asked to serve if a war breaks out. Wrong again, morons! Along with the two other members of their squad, Christine (Petty, A League of Their Own) and Fred (Grier, Blankman), they find themselves in the middle of a desert war between Chad and Libya. Naturally, the fate of the free world ultimately lies in their hands when they\u2019re the only ones that can complete a mission to blow up a Libyan missile base before it can fire on American bases. Hey, I feel safer just knowing Shore has our country\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I suppose I should give you a brief description of Petty and Grier\u2019s characters. Christine is a tough girl type just waiting for the Army to repeal its sexist \u201cno women in combat\u201d policy. What do you think the chances are that she\u2019ll be kicking ass my movie\u2019s end? Fred is a dental student who gives new meaning to anxiety. He\u2019s afraid of everything. What do you think the chances are he\u2019ll grow a pair by movie\u2019s end? If you\u2019re unsure of the correct answer to either or both questions, it\u2019s my guess you\u2019ve never seen a movie before.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In fairness, In the Army Now<\/strong> is NOT Shore\u2019s worst movie. No, that would be Jury Duty. In the Army Now<\/strong> runs a close second. It\u2019s only saving grace is the half-handful of amusing moments mostly provided by Lynn Whitfield (Doctor Detroit) as the tough drill sergeant who whips Shore\u2019s character into shape. Her exaggerated take on a no-BS military type is good for a few chuckles. Shore\u2019s one shining moment is his reaction to his buzz cut after the Army barber shaves off his trademark long locks. I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s not acting either; it must have taken him years to grow his hair like that. They can keep the rest of the movie. It sucks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Daniel Petrie Jr. (Toy Soldiers) deserves a gold star for trying to work with the mess of a screenplay by five writers based on a story by three others. In the Army Now<\/strong> isn\u2019t a movie; it\u2019s a group project, one that barely deserves to eke by with a D-. If you\u2019ve ever wondered what\u2019s meant by the term filmmaking-by-committee, this is it. It rushes through basic training, the very area where most military-themed comedies mine their laughs. What gags we do get- e.g. throwing the pin and dropping the grenade- are tired and predictable right down to the record number of push-ups Bones is forced to do.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I can envision a meeting with studio execs asking the committee to come up with a military comedy using Stripes as a jumping-off point. Tell the same basic story, but make it preteen friendly for Shore\u2019s fan base. So it is that a visit to a mud-wrestling bar is replaced with a house party that wouldn\u2019t even attract the attention of a sleepy small town sheriff on a Sunday. In toning it down, they\u2019ve made it less funny, much less funny. Shore and Dick are no Murray and Ramis; they\u2019re not even close. Not a single line of comedic dialogue comes anywhere close to one of Murray\u2019s barbs in the classic 1981 comedy. As funny as Whitfield is, the late Warren Oates\u2019 Sgt. Hulka can still blow her off the screen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I could make many more comparisons between the two movies but I\u2019ll stop at saying In the Army Now<\/strong> isn\u2019t as funny as it thinks it is. It is, however, quite annoying at times. Believe it or not, this isn\u2019t entirely Shore\u2019s doing although his act starts to wear thin here. No, it\u2019s mostly Andy Dick. I can\u2019t stand that guy. He\u2019s not the least bit funny. His character Jack is both an ass and the actor\u2019s surname. The things he says to Petty\u2019s character are grounds for a dishonorable discharge. To borrow a line from 52 Pick-Up, there\u2019s something about Dick that makes me want to slap the s*** out of him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In being preteen friendly, In the Army Now<\/strong> tends to play it too safe. It\u2019s a war comedy that wants to play nice. The squad\u2019s conflict with a Special Forces meathead (Morales, Bad Boys) is resolved too easily. They get captured by Arab soldiers without being beaten or tortured for vital information. If I wanted a safe military comedy, I\u2019d watch the one with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Nobody wants to see that anymore. In the end, In the Army Now<\/strong> is a dud.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Army Now (1994)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hollywood\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (some war action, mild language, comic sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Daniel Petrie Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Ken Kaufman, Stu Krieger, Daniel Petrie Jr., Fax Bahr and Adam Small\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Robert Folk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: William Wages\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 12, 1994 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Pauly Shore, Lori Petty, David Alan Grier, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/In-the-Army-Now-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6739"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7096,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6739\/revisions\/7096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}