"MacGyver" lasted seven years and it was nothing if not derivative. In the first season it borrowed whole plot lines from old movies like "The Italian Job" with Michael Caine and Charlton Heston's "The Naked Jungle." Not only did they steal the stories wholesale, they used actual footage from those movies that they matched with studio shots.
Well, this trend continued right through the show and here we are beginning its last season with a rip-off of "The In-Laws" with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk.
This is not a review of "The In-Laws" but in case you missed it, it was one of the funniest movies ever. Arkin has to get to his daughter's wedding but Falk, who may or may not be working for the CIA, gets him further and further away until they're in a Latin American dictatorship.
In "The In-Laws" (pun on "outlaws") the dictator is a total nut case, doing ventriloquist bits from Senor Wences (if you're too young to remember him, look him up). Here, the dictator does chintzy magic tricks, amongst other things. But it's the same difference.
In the early days, the writers for "MacGyver" were simple plagiarists. Over the years, they learned how to change the source material they were pilfering (as when they did a "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" take-off). But anyone who has seen "The In-Laws" will catch on fast. Hey, they even got a comic who looks kind of like Falk's character, if you squint and use peripheral vision. But in the movie Falk is always hilarious, unlike this guy.
At least they try to be funny, and the funny "MacGyver" shows always beat the serious ones, hands down. MacGyver's ability to make a working airplane with construction paper, string, paper clips and rubber bands always seems to work better in a light atmosphere. Though this time his tricks run thin.
Ben Stein ("Bueller . . . Bueller . . .), playing a security guard chasing MacGyver, has some funny lines as only he can deliver them, and he has one about MacGyver toward the end that is absolutely true.
BTW, people like MacGyver always talk airily about Iran Contra and other so-called Republican scandals. I wonder if they'll ever have a show mentioning the 2020 election? Nah.
Well, this trend continued right through the show and here we are beginning its last season with a rip-off of "The In-Laws" with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk.
This is not a review of "The In-Laws" but in case you missed it, it was one of the funniest movies ever. Arkin has to get to his daughter's wedding but Falk, who may or may not be working for the CIA, gets him further and further away until they're in a Latin American dictatorship.
In "The In-Laws" (pun on "outlaws") the dictator is a total nut case, doing ventriloquist bits from Senor Wences (if you're too young to remember him, look him up). Here, the dictator does chintzy magic tricks, amongst other things. But it's the same difference.
In the early days, the writers for "MacGyver" were simple plagiarists. Over the years, they learned how to change the source material they were pilfering (as when they did a "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" take-off). But anyone who has seen "The In-Laws" will catch on fast. Hey, they even got a comic who looks kind of like Falk's character, if you squint and use peripheral vision. But in the movie Falk is always hilarious, unlike this guy.
At least they try to be funny, and the funny "MacGyver" shows always beat the serious ones, hands down. MacGyver's ability to make a working airplane with construction paper, string, paper clips and rubber bands always seems to work better in a light atmosphere. Though this time his tricks run thin.
Ben Stein ("Bueller . . . Bueller . . .), playing a security guard chasing MacGyver, has some funny lines as only he can deliver them, and he has one about MacGyver toward the end that is absolutely true.
BTW, people like MacGyver always talk airily about Iran Contra and other so-called Republican scandals. I wonder if they'll ever have a show mentioning the 2020 election? Nah.
