This may not be the first movie remake that practically duplicates scenes from the film that inspired it, but this approach is a particularly bad idea for a comedy. Success in comedy depends on the chemistry of the actors, something that cannot be faked. And this movie makes the colossal mistake of having the actors try to channel the chemistry of the original cast instead of developing their own chemistry. It's like a comedy karaoke machine--new people attempting the same jokes, in the same style as the original actors.
Nathan Lane is made out to look and sound just like Zero Mostel, while Matthew Broderick adopts the mannerisms of Gene Wilder's meek, neurotic character from the original film. The two actors even do the entire "I'm hysterical!" sequence, down to Wilder's gibberish. I admit that I laughed a little during this scene, perhaps more from nostalgia than from anything else. But I found the rest of the film surprisingly unfunny. That's because the new film doesn't just reenact the jokes, it beats us over the head with them. The musical numbers are part of the problem. In the scene introducing the gay director, for example, the movie gives us a long parade of gay stereotypes but can't find a twist that would make the material funny. The gay troupe's song is called "Keep It Gay," which violates one of the cardinal rules of jokes about gay people, which is that you never, ever say the word "gay."
There's only one really funny scene in the film, and that's the introduction of Will Ferrell as the Nazi playwright. Ferrell is pretty much doing his regular shtick rather than trying to imitate Kenneth Mars. Ordinarily that might be a put-down, but this film is so filled with impersonations that it's desperately in need of an actor being true to his own style. Uma Thurman, as a Swedish bimbo, also looks more comfortable in her role than most of the cast, though she doesn't quite steal her scenes. Still, it is worth noting that Ferrell and Thurman are the only major cast members who weren't in the play. Apparently, they weren't imprisoned by the demands of the play.
It's an important point. What works on stage doesn't necessarily work on screen. And Susan Stroman is a first-time director who probably didn't know how to adapt the material properly. I never saw the Broadway show, but my aunt did, and when she described to me the sequence where a crowd of old ladies do a dance with their walkers, it sounded to me like a clever and funny idea, which it probably was--on stage. On screen, the scene is curiously lacking. The surrealism clashes with the more traditional comic material in other scenes. Similarly, the jokes which come from the original film are over-the-top here because plays by their nature are more exuberant than films.
I mentioned before that Lane is made to look like Zero Mostel. Actually, he looks more like a shrimp doing a Mostel impression. I never before realized how short Lane is. He looks almost like a dwarf standing next to Broderick, who isn't especially tall. That's not to mention how he looks next to Ferrell and Thurman. He isn't the type of actor like Al Pacino or Bob Hoskins who knows how to compensate for his diminutive size with a commanding presence. And that's a problem, because he's supposed to be playing a domineering character who walks all over Broderick.
Actually, the whole relationship of the two characters is different here. When Broderick first refuses to participate in the scam, he, unlike Gene Wilder in the original, offers no moral objections. His entire argument is that he's too much of a spineless coward to break the law. The problem is that we don't see this quality in Broderick's character. When he sings loudly about his cowardice and firmly says no to Lane, there's an irony that I'm not sure is intended. Broderick's version of the Leo Bloom character isn't really weak-willed at all. And he's just as lacking in a conscience as Lane's character is. As the film progresses, he's also revealed to be quite a schemer. I guess none of this is surprising. Broderick doesn't generally play nebbishes: his usual shtick is as a guy whose surface sweetness masks a certain depravity. So why did he even bother mimicking Gene Wilder? Why didn't he develop his own take on the character, more suited to his style? All he accomplishes here is diminishing the relationship between him and Lane. In the original, Mostel was supposed to have inspired Wilder, but you don't get much of that sense here. Broderick's character grows more assertive on his own, without any help from Lane.
I should point out that the movie gets worse as it goes along, so everything I've said so far doesn't even begin to capture how bad the later scenes are. "Springtime for Hitler" is shockingly lame here, which makes the whole outcome not make sense. Then Lane has a solo number where the film sets up a joke based on the idea of his life flashing before his eyes. The joke falls so horrendously flat that we wind up wishing the film had stuck to copying the jokes from the original.
Nathan Lane is made out to look and sound just like Zero Mostel, while Matthew Broderick adopts the mannerisms of Gene Wilder's meek, neurotic character from the original film. The two actors even do the entire "I'm hysterical!" sequence, down to Wilder's gibberish. I admit that I laughed a little during this scene, perhaps more from nostalgia than from anything else. But I found the rest of the film surprisingly unfunny. That's because the new film doesn't just reenact the jokes, it beats us over the head with them. The musical numbers are part of the problem. In the scene introducing the gay director, for example, the movie gives us a long parade of gay stereotypes but can't find a twist that would make the material funny. The gay troupe's song is called "Keep It Gay," which violates one of the cardinal rules of jokes about gay people, which is that you never, ever say the word "gay."
There's only one really funny scene in the film, and that's the introduction of Will Ferrell as the Nazi playwright. Ferrell is pretty much doing his regular shtick rather than trying to imitate Kenneth Mars. Ordinarily that might be a put-down, but this film is so filled with impersonations that it's desperately in need of an actor being true to his own style. Uma Thurman, as a Swedish bimbo, also looks more comfortable in her role than most of the cast, though she doesn't quite steal her scenes. Still, it is worth noting that Ferrell and Thurman are the only major cast members who weren't in the play. Apparently, they weren't imprisoned by the demands of the play.
It's an important point. What works on stage doesn't necessarily work on screen. And Susan Stroman is a first-time director who probably didn't know how to adapt the material properly. I never saw the Broadway show, but my aunt did, and when she described to me the sequence where a crowd of old ladies do a dance with their walkers, it sounded to me like a clever and funny idea, which it probably was--on stage. On screen, the scene is curiously lacking. The surrealism clashes with the more traditional comic material in other scenes. Similarly, the jokes which come from the original film are over-the-top here because plays by their nature are more exuberant than films.
I mentioned before that Lane is made to look like Zero Mostel. Actually, he looks more like a shrimp doing a Mostel impression. I never before realized how short Lane is. He looks almost like a dwarf standing next to Broderick, who isn't especially tall. That's not to mention how he looks next to Ferrell and Thurman. He isn't the type of actor like Al Pacino or Bob Hoskins who knows how to compensate for his diminutive size with a commanding presence. And that's a problem, because he's supposed to be playing a domineering character who walks all over Broderick.
Actually, the whole relationship of the two characters is different here. When Broderick first refuses to participate in the scam, he, unlike Gene Wilder in the original, offers no moral objections. His entire argument is that he's too much of a spineless coward to break the law. The problem is that we don't see this quality in Broderick's character. When he sings loudly about his cowardice and firmly says no to Lane, there's an irony that I'm not sure is intended. Broderick's version of the Leo Bloom character isn't really weak-willed at all. And he's just as lacking in a conscience as Lane's character is. As the film progresses, he's also revealed to be quite a schemer. I guess none of this is surprising. Broderick doesn't generally play nebbishes: his usual shtick is as a guy whose surface sweetness masks a certain depravity. So why did he even bother mimicking Gene Wilder? Why didn't he develop his own take on the character, more suited to his style? All he accomplishes here is diminishing the relationship between him and Lane. In the original, Mostel was supposed to have inspired Wilder, but you don't get much of that sense here. Broderick's character grows more assertive on his own, without any help from Lane.
I should point out that the movie gets worse as it goes along, so everything I've said so far doesn't even begin to capture how bad the later scenes are. "Springtime for Hitler" is shockingly lame here, which makes the whole outcome not make sense. Then Lane has a solo number where the film sets up a joke based on the idea of his life flashing before his eyes. The joke falls so horrendously flat that we wind up wishing the film had stuck to copying the jokes from the original.