A Fly-By Review of "Inspector Gadget"- The Movie, and Some More Important Things.

I changed the title of this post. It was originally going to be something cutesy... something with "Wowzers" in it. And there is a reason I told you that, because it shows you just how serious I took writing this review. You have no idea how long I've been wanting to do this, or how many reviews I already have saved as drafts- but my own laziness, self-consciousness, and the fact that I could never find a good movie that everyone I know hadn't already seen prevented me. Until the other night when I got all mad after watching LOST and decided to write about it- and people liked it, and it got off well, and I promised a review and...buried myself. I want you to know that I did not pick this movie from other choices as the best possible one to review, my sisters have been watching a lot of old "Inspector Gadget" cartoons recently, and in the midst of missing them when I was at Nina and Papa's for my birthday I decided it would be a good idea to rent the live-action movie. The last time I watched it was in 2007, when it kept coming on TBS. And for some reason, weird memories of Mom and Dad giggling at a few parts, coupled with a conversation I remember having with Dad in Cici's about what was like the cartoon and what wasn't, gave me the lasting impression that it was a funny, memorable family movie. But it obviously wasn't that memorable, or I would have remembered it for what it is; a cruddy, cruddy, direct-to-video film. So movie- I am going to review you. But not in the professional, analytical way I had originally intended- your not worth it. In more of a fly-by, heres-to-justify-all-the-mean-things-I'm-gonna-say way. And then I'm getting on with my life. The first thing that pulled me out of my illusion when I watched this, was the dialogue. It will make you cringe. And no, I'm not talking about Mathew Broderick (here is another good thing about movie reviews, you can use actor and actress's names as if you know them and all their work when you really don't, I've never seen another of Mathew Broderick's films) saying "Wowzers" every five minutes, that I forgive. And I also understand the need to make this palatable for children; the intended audience, but let's be frank here- Loony Toons is palatable for children, The Muppet movies are palatable, even the Backyardigans are funny and make perfect sense to a kid. So why on earth, if it wasn't just really bad script writing, did they feel the need to make all their characters sound like the adults on a Barney episode? And again, I'm not gonna go into a ton of detail about the acting and stuff; mainly because I know virtually nothing about acting except that it has to do with stage-fright and fur coats, and because I'm not sure how any actor or actress who tried their best could have made a script like that better. In fact, the only thing else I'm going to write about this movie, is that it confirmed a suspicion I had the moment I watched the commercial on Netflix; if you've never seen the cartoon, it will make a ton more sense. One thing I notice a lot about Disney movies that are made from a previous idea; no matter how iconic and well known the original was, Disney will make it completely different. And I don't mean all the Disney based-of-a-cartoon-movies are bad, I liked "Underdog", but then, I've never seen the cartoon. It's like, they got the idea from someone, watched about five seconds from one of the old episodes, and ran with it. And no, it doesn't really bother me at all that it wasn't like the cartoon, it just doesn't make any sense. There were all these element of the cartoon that were really well-known, like the Claw's face never getting shown and Penny finding all the clues, that would have been easy to incorporate and at least make it to were you could watch the movie and go "Oh YeeAAAhhh!!! The Claw did have a cat! Wadda ya know, someone did their research!". And then there were other weird things that they just kind of threw into the movie, and when I watched it oblivious to the fact that a cartoon version even existed, it seemed to make perfect sense that his car would talk and his dog wouldn't. Oh yyyessss....I almost forgot. The Gadget Mobile. don't make me start on the Gadget Mobile, I could write an entire blog post about it. Let's just say that by the end of the movie I was crying into Ruby's shoulder begging her to make it stop talking. I don't know whether they thought the actors and actresses were too boring or if they just needed to kill time, but why the heck the decided it would be a good idea the throw in an annoying car that sounded like...I don't know...some DJ or something....is beyond me. But that's it. That's ALL I'm gonna say. This movie has seriously frightened me from ever trusting blindly to my memories again, and possibly frightened me out of renting the second one, which I hear is better. OK. In Other News; We went to the dentist yesterday, our first trip, even for me. We all had our teeth looked at and cleaned and Isabel had two cavities filled, and as it turns out; I have a dirty, dirty mouth. I was there for the LONGEST time and the hygienist had to call in the actual dentist to look at my teeth. I will need to have cavities filled, I may need braces and they want a specialist to look and see if I need surgery to get my wisdom teeth out. It proves it; ignorance is bliss. I have never had teeth problems before and I wasn't really worried about them at all until yesterday, when suddenly someone looks in my mouth and tells me my teeth are about to ruin my life. I'm done now, and I will let you off the hook because I just pushed "preview" and this post looks menacingly long. Bye!


P.S. Just kidding! You thought would get off without a P.S.? Ha! Anyway, If it's not to much trouble I would seriously like a suggestion for a REAL movie to review. Thank you.

P.P.S. If you happen to be a fan of the old cartoon and are wondering what's in it for you, there is this strange little part during the credits were Penny calls Brian on her watch-thingy and he answers and has a really weird voice. It wasn't the next day when my brain finally made the connection and I realized that it was Don Adams, voice of the old Inspector. So there, enjoy!