‘Starsky’ and ‘Ten Yards’ fail; another ‘Rocks’
April 30, 2004 | 12:00am
With Friends ending on May 6, Sex and the City already signed off, and the future of Everybody Loves Raymond still unknown, laughter on TV seems to be speedily diminishing (let’s hope Will & Grace isn’t next), especially with cheap, recycled sitcoms taking their place (i.e. Charlie Sheen’s Two And A Half Men). This is when we must turn to movies for our healthy dose of knee-slapping comedy, and considering two of the three comedies released this week, Hollywood isn’t getting any funnier; the once-promising Starsky & Hutch and The Whole Nine Yards sequel, The Whole Ten Yards, both disappoint. However, the Jack Black vehicle School of Rock shines, unveiling a new comedic revelation.
In Starsky & Hutch, best friends Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson star as the ’70s favorite crime-fighting duo in this TV-to-big-screen adaptation. David Starsky (Stiller) and Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson (Wilson) are two goofball undercover cops both on the brink of getting the pink slip. They are made partners, and set out on their first big crime caper: exposing a drug operation handled by a dealer named Reese (Vince Vaughn), who has produced a new kind of cocaine that is undetectable and will just be mistaken as powdered sugar. With the help of Huggy Bear (Snoop Dogg), Hutch’s street informant, and Starsky’s red, ultra-cool Ford Gran Torino, the show’s so-called "third character," they must find Reese before he gets away with the money.
Starsky & Hutch, at the very least, isn’t as bad as other previous TV-to-movie transitions that have given the genre a bad rap. The casting is superb: The chemistry between Stiller and Wilson is unmatchable, and Snoop Dogg is perfect as Huggy. However, it still wasn’t as funny as I had hoped, and doesn’t even compare to other, much funnier Ben Stiller comedies (Meet the Parents, Zoolander, There’s Something About Mary, The Royal Tenenbaums); I only had about two or three genuine laughs throughout the entire film (once during the hilarious scene in which an uncredited Will Ferrell cameos, playing convict Big Earl who makes Starsky and Hutch get into compromising positions, and another in a locker room scene in which the duo wears hand towels thinking they were regular-sized). Director and co-writer Todd Phillips (Old School, Road Trip) doesn’t take the opportunity to be nostalgic and have fun with his material, resulting with a film too lazy to go beyond its standard by-the-numbers formula of homoeroticism and bad hair jokes. (When Wilson, doing his best David Soul impression, sings Don’t Give Up On Us, you can’t help but cringe.)
And if Starsky & Hutch doesn’t go anywhere with its plot, The Whole Ten Yards doesn’t even have one. The sequel to 2000’s modest hit, Ten Yards brings back the cast of Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Kevin Pollak, Amanda Peet and Natasha Henstridge. Perry plays Oz, a paranoid, panicky dentist who used to live next door to a mobster named Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Willis). Oz is married to the beautiful Cynthia (Henstridge), Jimmy’s ex-wife, and Jimmy, who’s now hiding in Mexico living a Martha Stewart lifestyle, is now married to Jill (Peet), Oz’s former assistant. But when Lazlo (Pollak), a mob boss, kidnaps Cynthia, Oz seeks help from his former neighbor.
The Whole Ten Yards is evidently a sequel that didn’t need to be made, and a sequel that shouldn’t have been made. There is practically no story, and thus no coherence to keep the film together. George Gallo’s script is a train wreck of a screenplay, with no remotely funny gags; if Willis were to crack a joke that would fall flat, he’d cover it up with a stern look on his face; Perry, on the other hand, does nothing but get hurt the whole 97 minutes, be it fall, trip, or hit a wall.
Willis, Perry, and the entire cast work so hard running around for no reason whatsoever, creating 97 minutes of complete and utter nothingness, and are unbelievably oblivious to the film’s stupidity. Ten Yards is tedious, unfunny, painful, and desperate for some laughs, and hidden in a cluster of trips, falls, and erectile dysfunction jokes, is a hollow, empty script.
Bottom Line: Lazy and uninspired, Starsky & Hutch wastes the opportunity to be fun, nostalgic, and colorful – and spends 95 minutes going nowhere.
Grade: C+
Bottom Line: Ten Yards feels like 10 miles in The Whole Ten Yards, a desperate, pathetic, excruciating comedy; so far the year’s worst film.
Grade: F
Black stars as Dewey Finn, an aspiring rock superstar turned unemployed loser after he’s fired from his rock band. In need of cash, Dewey pretends to be Ned Schneebly (Mike White, who also wrote the film), his roommate and best friend, and takes Ned’s temp job as a fifth grade substitute teacher in an uptight, very prestigious private school. There, he sees how dreary the syllabus is, and how bored the students are. Thinking it would ignite their long-gone interest, Dewey teaches the kids his own curricula of what he knows best: rock music. He assigns each student a role in a band (keyboard, manager, bass, groupies, etc.), teaches them the proper rocker attitude and mannerisms, and for homework, makes them listen to CDs. However, after such lessons on Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Who, Dewey and his students set their sights on something much more exciting: winning their local Battle of the Bands.
Director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused) surprises its audience by helming the film with such a warm, sparkling touch, collaborating with Mike White’s hilarious script. But what truly astonishes is the profuse amount of sincere, genuine emotion and poignancy scattered throughout this School, a joyous, infectious spirit. Jack Black gives an unpredictably first-rate performance filled with comedic earnestness; School of Rock has become the cornerstone of his not-so-spectacular career and proves he can be a comedic revelation.
School of Rock is a dance-in-the-theater-aisles kind of comedy that will be embraced by all ages, whether you’re a rock music enthusiast or not. It isn’t just another Jack Black film like Shallow Hal. It, in fact, leans more toward to, dare I say, Dead Poets Society.
Bottom Line: Raise your goblets of rock to this disarmingly magical, touching, hilarious comedy. A surprising success that rocks!
Grade: A-
Watch School of Rock. Out of the three comedies being released this week, this is by far the best one, a must-see.
Don’t watch The Whole Ten Yards.
Don’t watch Starsky & Hutch.
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