Fun With Dick and Jane

A Columbia Pictures film - directed by Dean Parisot.

Running time: 90 minutes.

Rated PG-12

Dick Harper: Jim Carrey

Jane Harper: Tea Leoni

Jack McCallister: Alec Baldwin

Frank Bascom: Richard Jenkins

Veronica: Angie Harmon

Peter Scott: Jeff Garlin

What the hell’s the matter with Hollywood? Why do we have to suffer endless re-makes, are there no scriptwriters alive anymore? Here is the latest of this recycling trend with “Fun With Dick and Jane", a re-make of the 1977 comedy starring Jane Fonda and George Segal, and with the same problems of the earlier movie.

Jim Carrey is not my favourite actor in the world but this film, as so many others have been, was obviously built around him. Recently I heard an interview with Carrey in which he admitted he only chooses scripts that appeal to him. I fail to see what could have possibly have impressed him enough about this poorly conceived script to make him even consider it. Maybe the only option was a re-make of Ace Ventura – Store Detective or what ever it was.

To be fair, without Carrey this film would have been a right minger for without the cameo set pieces which are the trademark of this off-the-wall, manic actor, it would probably have never been made. But it was made and we can’t turn back history even if movie producers try to.

Carrey plays Dick, an executive of an American Megacorp called Globadyne in the style of Enron, who is promoted to vice president in charge of communications just in time to be its spokesman on live cable news as the corporation's stock melts down faster than a politicians excuse.

Tea Leoni plays his wife Jane, who tries her best with the weaker part, playing a travel agent but has quit her job that very morning because of Dick's big promotion. Ms Leoni has to resort to facial make-up gags for laughs as all the good lines are reserved for Mr Carrey, I suspect due the lack of them.

They were looking forward to a more affluent life and of course due to Globadynes meltdown they wind up broke. Yeah, yeah you know the story, it’s been done so many times and much better than this. There’s a token child in there, the obvious Mexican maid, a dog who gets probably the funniest gag and I guess it has everything that a middle class, middle American movie has. Put it in a dustbin liner, give it a good shake and out tumbles a crappy film that I guess the Americans will like.

The film is far too long for the amount of script and even with Alex Baldwin as the baddy it fails to stop me squirming in my seat and longing for the ice-cream break.

The second half could have been better, it’s there on a plate and yet the film bosses lost the plot just as they did in the 1977 version. When Dick and Jane become big-time crooks to survive, the script could have risen to new heights, instead it fell to sleep.

At certain stages I wondered why some of the characters had been written in, Richard Jenkins as Frank Bascome looked like a lost boy in a supermarket, walking up and down isles of beans wondering what to do with his lines. Not that they were worth doing anything with, I began to wonder if the bottle he was drinking from actually had booze in it, to numb the ache of such a painfully bland script.

To be honest there were times when I laughed, but in the end I came out of the cinema and went straight to the pub just so the evening wasn’t completely wasted.

I don’t regret going to see it, it’s harmless in it’s own way and better than most to offer on television but I do regret saying I’d write a review for it.

I reckon FullAuto had some inside info on this one.