In 1997 Brendan Fraser paved the way to stardom by playing the title character in George of the Jungle, adaptation of popular 1960s family-friendly animation series. Two years later he tried to repeat that success by starring in adaptation of Rocky and Bullwinkle, another 1960s animation series, or, to be more precise, its segment called Dudley Do-Right, which got its own spin-off known as The Dudley Do-Right Show. The feature film version, directed by Hugh Wilson, is set in Semi-Happy Valley in Canada. Security of the location is the duty of Dudley Do-Right (played by Fraser), member of Royal Canadian Mounted Police (“Mountie”) who dreamed of that job since he was child. His dream life is interrupted with an arrival of Snidely Whiplash (played by Alfred Molina), his childhood friend who, in the meantime, achieved his own childhood dream of becoming a villain. Whiplash has devised devious plan how to get rich at the expense of his former neighbours. First he chases them away with stories about vampires, then he buys land for pittance and, finally, drops small amounts of gold in nearby rivers in hope attracting naive gold prospectors whom he would exploit during gold rush. Dudley tries to stop this scheme, but fails, just as he fails to make his love interest Nell Fenwick (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) interested in him. Ultimately, he gets kicked out of the force but constantly drunk gold prospector Kim J. Darling (played by Eric Idle) would prepare him for inevitable showdown.
Fraser was attracted to the project. One reason was the director Wilson, with whom he had collaborated with success in his previous film Blast from the Past. The success, however, wasn’t repeated with this film. While Fraser and Molina apparently enjoyed the production and invested great deal of effort and talent in playing their respective roles, this can’t be said of Sarah Jessica Parker and Eric Idle, who appear quite disinterested. Even worse is that scriptwriters apparently lack sense of humour. Gags are either weak or repetitive and the film looks much longer than its 77 minutes of running time. It would be unfair to deny that there are at least some hilarious scenes in the film (Kumquat Indian tribe dance revue is best example), but anyone except the most nostalgic or the youngest of all viewers would have very few reasons to spend their time on Dudley Do-Right.
RATING: 4/10 (+)
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