PWNYCNY
Goldie Hawn is a wonderful comedy actress; Steve Martin is a wonderful comedy actor; Neil Simon is a wonderful comedy writer; and New York City is a wonderful place to use as a setting for a movie. Yet, this movie is a clunker; it's as flat as a pancake, and an overcooked one at that. Although certain scenes do provoke a laugh, in general this movie simply is not funny. The story is a pure Hollywood comedy potboiler, that is, a formula movie and a poor retread of the 1970 original, which itself wasn't the funniest movie either, but that's for another review. The idea of everything going wrong during a trip is nothing new, but if properly treated it can produce laughs. But in this movie the things that go wrong are so absurd and contrived that the laughs are lost. What happens to the Clarks would not and could not happen to anyone else, hence the movie becomes irrelevant to the audience and loses its meaning as a satire or parody. John Cleese provides some humor as the hotel manager but his presence is limited and in no way comes close to rescuing this movie from its essential banality.
dartleyk
but a truly moronic remake of a bright, acerbic, top jack lemmon film that actually had a plot and moved through it; this is steve martin after he stopped being funny anymore, walking through a series of stupid skits- a la wow, wouldn';t it be funny if the car they rent has a gps they can't understand and they drive through a fish market; hello? overall very slow, disjointed, bad one-off skits, and instead of being unlucky and chipping a tooth martin and goldie hawn are incredibly stupid; hard to imagine a bunch of Hollywood cokeheads sitting around thinking the rushes were funny, entertaining even; also missing the good origmal music, the period scenes of nyc that are fun to see decades later; remember snl- and the thing about martin looking funny and making odd expressions was that it was the kicker to really good line; take away that and the frill are stale and fall flat
Jack Long
I am a big fan of the original movie with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis. So you can imagine how excited I was to see what they might have done with it. Unfortunately, it turned out that instead of seeing what they had done WITH it, I was saddened to see what they had done TO it. I have read many places where Troll 2 is considered the worst movie ever made, and I agree it is pretty cheezy. But as far as a really bad movie, this one out-does Troll 2 in every possible way. Shame on Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn for accepting to make this abomination! For one thing, it has nothing remotely akin to the original script of Neil Simon's. The basic premise is similar...New York, job interview, mishaps. That's about it. The comedy(?) is nothing but stupid slapstick crap that I often refer to as cheap and easy. I like Steve Martin, but I keep wondering why he keeps doing these horrible remakes of good classics (e.g. Cheaper By The Dozen). I issue this review as a warning against seeing this waste of time. From here on, watch it, but at your own risk. Don't say I didn't warn you!
Listen_to_the_Law
The Out-of-Towners is one of the better comedies I have seen. With a stellar (but not Oscar-worthy) cast, the Out-of-Towners is a classic to me. Acting in terms of Martin and Hawn (they play a stressed-out, overdue married couple who's kids have been sent to college) is good, but not spectacular. Martin is talented, (as he shows here), but he cannot carry a film by himself, which is where John Cleese comes in. Cleese is a uptight, cross-dressing hotel manager with a presence that takes the movie to the next level. This is a movie that is helped by its directing and writing, as many of the funny moments (which are clever and well thought-out) should be credited to the writers more so than the stars. This and Bringing Down the House are the best Steve Martin films I have seen since Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
AD
