I like Will Smith, generally.
I love Kenneth Branaugh.
I adore Kevin Kline.
…and, yet the movie sucked all life out of them, and killed movie steam-punk for more than a decade, and counting.
Branaugh was memorable for his scene chewing. Selma Hayak was memorable for her tremendous beauty.
Yes, she was a breast of fresh air.
I suspect that since all of them are good actors, and all of them (and Hayek, also a good actor) scene chewed their way through this in a way usually only seen in a high school production of Arsenic and Old Lace, that there was a directoral decision to “make it bigger.”
Kevin Kline has proven that he can nibble scenery much more subtlety.
(And you have League of Extraordinary Gentlemen putting the nail in the coffin of Steampunk).
Agree entirely. I knew it was going to be bad when they didn’t start it with the great theme song from the show. And they ended with that horribly done version of it.
I actually thought it was good, brainless summer fun. I confess I never followed the original TV series all that closely, so I wasn’t holding it to that standard. And c’mon - tell me you didn’t laugh at this exchange when you first saw it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P5E3C052MQ
Yep. Look at Transformers 2. Everyone said the same thing about it… “insulting to my intelligence”, “made no sense”, “loud and brash”, “too stupid for words”, etc. etc.
$410 million domestic box office.
That was brilliant. Too much fun!
Ha-ha! He sure made that amputee feel bad about not having legs!
When it’s a murderous, evil amputee who’s using racist insults, well, my friend, sometimes you’ve gotta fight fire with fire.
As a devoted fan of the original TV series the WWW movie was despicably bad. The chemistry between West and Gordon in the TV show was just not there between Smith and Kline in the movie. I can even forgive that if they didn’t make a travesty of the Dr. Loveless character. Instead of using a dwarf (like the great Michael Dunn) they simply took away Kenneth Branagh’s legs to make him short! But, yes, Salma Hayek was the one redeeming part of the movie.
Sorry, you asked if we thought it was funny, and I didn’t find either the “you’re colored” or the “you’re only half a man jokes” funny at all, although the latter were more offensive to me in that they came from the ostensible “good guy” who was clearly meant to be the victor in that exchange. The whole sequence was pretty much the opposite of funny. Mileage varies, obviously.
Warning: after watching this, you will never be able to take Jon Peters or anything he is associated with seriously again.
Oh good grief. This is the kind of crap that gives political correctness a bad name. You know, evil actions - actually being a bad guy - are a lot worse than any kind of joke. Unless you’re aghast at every single bit of violence on tv and in the movies (which would pretty much require living with a blindfold and earplugs in modern America), then you need your offense-o-meter recalibrated. Punching him would’ve been worse than making cripple jokes, but I guarantee you wouldn’t have blinked at that.
Yeah, but punching him might have been funny
I still can’t get past the fact that the OP watched that POS movie three times!
That’s the kind of overreaction that has robbed the term “political correctness” of any effectiveness. I refrained from personally insulting anyone who found the clip funny, but somehow the fact that I didn’t laugh has offended you. How about accepting that not everyone sees things your way, and that’s OK?
I would think that went without saying, but OK.
Right, I have to find that setting that ignores insults based on race and disability but allows me to be offended by people not laughing at things I find funny. Might be tricky.
That’s odd that you think you can guarantee that.
I thought it was clever and funny.
There’s part of it I could watch endlessly. It’s the part that pokes out the back of Rita Escobar’s union suit.
Um, no, I didn’t laugh when I first saw it, and I definitely didn’t laugh when I watched that clip a second ago. Completely unfunny, totally forced, and just painful. That scene just screams “Writers trying desperately to write funny”.