{"id":6978,"date":"2024-10-25T11:31:59","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6978"},"modified":"2024-10-25T11:32:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T15:32:17","slug":"mr-magoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/mr-magoo\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Magoo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Mr. Magoo<\/strong> (1997)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (comic violence, action sequences, mild language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Stanley Tong\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Pat Proft and Tom Sherohman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Mike Travera\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jingle Ma\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 25, 1997 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Kelly Lynch, Matt Keeslar, Nick Chinlund, Stephen Tobolowsky, Ernie Hudson, Jennifer Garner, Malcolm McDowell, Miguel Ferrer, L. Harvey Gold, Art Irizawa, John Tierney, Terence Kelly, Rick Burgess, Jerry Wasserman.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $21.4M (US)\/$28.9M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: NO STARS!!!<\/p>\n

\u00a0With almost every movie, there\u2019s a right way and a wrong way to do it. I\u2019m not sure if there\u2019s a right way to do a movie like Mr. Magoo<\/strong>, but its makers sure found the wrong way. In fact, it\u2019s wrong in every single way. They couldn\u2019t have done a worse job bringing the cartoon character to live-action life if they tried. It\u2019s the kind of bad movie that gives bad movies a bad name.<\/p>\n

\u00a0By way of illustrating how terrible Mr. Magoo<\/strong> is, let me tell you about something that happened at the pre-release screening. A renowned area film critic was in attendance with his 5YO daughter. I asked her afterwards what she thought and she said hesitantly, \u201cIt was okay.\u201d When a child of five doesn\u2019t know what to make of a movie aimed at kids, something\u2019s definitely wrong.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If asked to pick the worst aspect of Mr. Magoo<\/strong>, it\u2019s a real no-brainer. It\u2019s the casting of Leslie Nielsen as the title character, an extremely near-sighted old man with a penchant for getting in and out of dangerous situations through sheer luck. In his original animated incarnation, he was short, bald and voiced by Jim Backus. Nielsen is none of those. He didn\u2019t even bother to shave his whole head for the role. I suspect he was cast for his name value only. A better choice would have been Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride), but his name doesn\u2019t exactly sell tickets, so we\u2019re stuck watching Nielsen bumble his way through the role. It\u2019s painful.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot, such as it is, involves wealthy canned vegetable factory owner Quincy Magoo being suspected of stealing a valuable gem from a museum. It was actually the work of a pair of jewel thieves played by Kelly Lynch (Road House) and Nick Chinlund (Con Air), but somehow \u201cThe Star of Kuristan\u201d ends up in his possession. They try to get it back. He wants to deliver it to his boss (McDowell, A Clockwork Orange). She has other plans. The feds on the case, CIA guy Anders (Hudson, Ghostbusters) and FBI guy Stupak (Tobolowsky, Groundhog Day), are two walking, talking examples of ineptitude. Naturally, Magoo has no idea what\u2019s going on. At a certain point, neither does the viewer.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The story takes Magoo, his dim-witted nephew Waldo (Keeslar, The Stupids) and his faithful dog Angus to a ski resort where Magoo poses as a Latin American crime lord and ends up gliding down a mountain on an ironing board. There\u2019s a romantic subplot involving Waldo and a Kuristan dignitary (Garner, 13 Going on 30). At one point, they chase after one of the bad guys in an eggplant-shaped car. Don\u2019t ask me why? Nothing in Mr. Magoo<\/strong> makes much sense. Rhyme and reason never once factor in.<\/p>\n

\u00a0You know what else doesn\u2019t factor into Mr. Magoo<\/strong>? HUMOR! This movie is devoid of it. It is monstrously unfunny. It\u2019s directed by Stanley Tong whose previous work with Jackie Chan- Supercop, Rumble in the Bronx and First Strike- is great fun. It\u2019s abundantly clear he\u2019s the wrong guy to direct a live-action version of a cartoon. Mr. Magoo<\/strong> falls flat on its face with every failed attempt at a joke, sight gag or slapstick piece. The physical humor is clumsy at best. Even the outtakes at the end fail to generate a single laugh. The only laugh comes at the end with the disclaimer stating that the movie \u201cis not intended as an accurate portrayal of blindness or poor eyesight\u201d. NO S***, SHERLOCK! Anybody who thinks Mr. Magoo accurately depicts poor eyesight is a moron. Whose bright idea was it to put in such a disclaimer in the first place? Whoever it was, he\/she is obviously out of touch with reality.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Forget about the acting in Mr. Magoo<\/strong>. Nobody gives anything close to an actual performance. They stumble, bumble and tumble through their roles. Nielsen absolutely embarrasses himself with the unfunny schtick he\u2019s asked to perform. He\u2019s a terrible Magoo. All of the characters are blithering idiots. The dog is the only one with any sense or intelligence. And what is McDowell even doing here? Is he that hard up for money? I don\u2019t know what Disney paid him to be in their movie, but it wasn\u2019t enough. No amount of money can ever buy back the dignity he lost by getting involved with this project.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I liked the Mr. Magoo cartoons as a child; however, what\u2019s amusing in six-minute increments doesn\u2019t necessarily work as an 87-minute feature film. Mr. Magoo<\/strong> is a one-joke movie in which the joke ceases to be funny before the animated opening credits are over. We\u2019re reminded of Magoo\u2019s cartoon origins before and after the movie proper. It just makes it all the more painful. Mr. Magoo<\/strong> manages the rare feat of being both mentally and physically excruciating. I can\u2019t believe anybody at Disney thought it would go over.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Let me circle back to that disclaimer. If anybody should be offended by this miserable botch job of a movie, it\u2019s sighted people for having to make the effort of closing their eyes not to see it. That\u2019s one advantage the blind and poor-sighted have. That being said, NOBODY should see, hear or have anything to do with Mr. Magoo<\/strong>.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr. Magoo (1997)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 87 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (comic violence, action sequences, mild language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Stanley Tong\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Pat Proft and Tom Sherohman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Mike Travera\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jingle Ma\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 25, 1997 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Kelly Lynch, Matt Keeslar, Nick Chinlund, Stephen Tobolowsky, Ernie Hudson, Jennifer Garner, Malcolm McDowell, Miguel Ferrer, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7272,"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-6978","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\/Mr-Magoo-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\/6978","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=6978"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7274,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978\/revisions\/7274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}