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Mar. 7th, 2004 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ldhensonI've been away from my old SH list for years and haven't yet gotten back on, so for the nonce I'm posting this here.
Huh. This may get me lynched, but...the new Starsky & Hutch movie?
I kinda liked it.
I don't love it. But I did enjoy myself.
Yeah, the rumors--think ominous--of a movie without DS and PMG have been swirling around since forever. When the rumors started getting more solid about four or five years ago, I wasn't thrilled, but also said the only way I could see it working was if they did an affectionate send-up, a la The Brady Bunch Movie.
Which is more or less what we got.
The movie makes it clear from the start that it's being played for laughs, which allowed me to sit back and enjoy it for what it is, and not particularly care that they completely futzed around with the characters and their backgrounds. And I mean completely.
I'm not really even going to go into all the differences here: if you're an old fan of S&H, you already know; and if you're a new fan, take it as default that everything's different.
Yeah, I know Ben Stiller said it's not a parody. But to yours truly, if it walks like a parody and quacks like a parody...
Even given this, I found the humor a little spotty. There are scenes which strain for the jokes, and others which trail off or drag on with no real sense of comedic pacing. Really sharp comedy could have elevated this into something that stands on its own merit; unfortunately it falls short. But there are enough scenes that work to make the movie fun on the whole, even if it's turn-off-the-brain fun.
First off, I remember when the news broke a year or two ago that Wilson would essay Hutch and Stiller would play Starsky, I was dismayed. Wilson I actually rather liked, but I never understood the appeal of Stiller. So imagine my surprise when I started to warm up to him in S&H: The Movie. I'm no big fan, but I do take back the protests. He's done his homework. He has the walk. (Hee. That's probably sacrilege to say so. All right, he has the moves of the walk, since there's no way to duplicate the, erm, body that went a long way towards making that walk famous.) He has the run. He has the laserbeam blue-eyed glare. And...hmm, that's possibly about it, because the script doesn't give him much else to try to replicate. The remainder of Starsky's mannerisms come from the remainder of his personality, which movie-Starsky shares none of. Starsky's the "bouncy energetic one" and Hutch is the "laid-back one," and that's about all the high-level description the original and movie versions share. It's actually pretty interesting to see how the movie script translates "bouncy and energetic" into "feverishly-conscientious and by-the-book."
As for Wilson, well, I fell for him from frame one in Shanghai Noon, and pretty much did the same here. He brings a similar sort of sweetness and gentle goofiness to both roles, and I go for it every time. So what if movie-Hutch is even further removed from the original than movie-Starsky, to the point where he's unrecognizable as the same character? I could pretty much overlook it, because I enjoyed watching Wilson so much. The script translates "laid-back" into "slips around the edges of the law whenever possible," which is a highly-unusual take but Wilson works with it well. Right from the little freeze-framed grimace he gives during his opening scene, he had me.
And Wilson and Stiller work well together, which is the point of the whole thing anyway. I've never seen any of their joint movies, so this was new to me.
What I really couldn't help liking was the attention to detail. Call me superficial, but I couldn't resist a little thrill at seeing some things replicated for the big screen. The Torino has never looked more gorgeous. There's the exterior of Hutch's house. The outfits. Starsky's automatic and Hutch's six-inch revolver. Starsky's left-handed holster. Even the exterior of Vince Vaughn's place looks maddeningly familiar. (Strangely, despite the obvious homework, Capt. Dobey's name is misspelled in the credits.)
And then, all the little visual echoes. I think they were wise to only replicate looks and themes without re-creating entire scenes (unlike, for example, The Brady Bunch Movie). Thus Starsky and Hutch questioning Vaughn's character while seated side-by-side on an ornate sofa. Being shirtless-with-holsters. Hutch's awful cowboy getup. Starsky staring enrapt at Hutch while he sings. The Torino fishtailing on city streets. Running down alleys. Driving real fast with the Mars light inside. Hutch's place getting broken into. The kid that Hutch looks after. A destroyed, then restored car.
And subtler things, like re-creating the running-on-the-beach photoshoot (now watching that was surreal). Starsky's two-fingered typing method. "Don't Give Up on Us Baby." And Starsky volunteering to give up his badge in a grand gesture, only to hastily retract it seconds later.
Last but not least is the send-up of the famed homoerotic undertones. Oh boy, they don't forget 'em. What could have had me cringing instead had me in stitches, because Wilson and Stiller wisely play their OTT situations without OTT winking.
And then the cameo, or should that be cameos? Oh, it broke the flow of the movie all to bits. But gosh, it was nice to see them again.
I suppose that this point I should start getting worried that stuff from the movie is going to start getting mixed into canon and leak back into fic. But right now I'm enjoying the silliness of the movie too much to think about that yet.
Huh. This may get me lynched, but...the new Starsky & Hutch movie?
I kinda liked it.
I don't love it. But I did enjoy myself.
Yeah, the rumors--think ominous--of a movie without DS and PMG have been swirling around since forever. When the rumors started getting more solid about four or five years ago, I wasn't thrilled, but also said the only way I could see it working was if they did an affectionate send-up, a la The Brady Bunch Movie.
Which is more or less what we got.
The movie makes it clear from the start that it's being played for laughs, which allowed me to sit back and enjoy it for what it is, and not particularly care that they completely futzed around with the characters and their backgrounds. And I mean completely.
I'm not really even going to go into all the differences here: if you're an old fan of S&H, you already know; and if you're a new fan, take it as default that everything's different.
Yeah, I know Ben Stiller said it's not a parody. But to yours truly, if it walks like a parody and quacks like a parody...
Even given this, I found the humor a little spotty. There are scenes which strain for the jokes, and others which trail off or drag on with no real sense of comedic pacing. Really sharp comedy could have elevated this into something that stands on its own merit; unfortunately it falls short. But there are enough scenes that work to make the movie fun on the whole, even if it's turn-off-the-brain fun.
First off, I remember when the news broke a year or two ago that Wilson would essay Hutch and Stiller would play Starsky, I was dismayed. Wilson I actually rather liked, but I never understood the appeal of Stiller. So imagine my surprise when I started to warm up to him in S&H: The Movie. I'm no big fan, but I do take back the protests. He's done his homework. He has the walk. (Hee. That's probably sacrilege to say so. All right, he has the moves of the walk, since there's no way to duplicate the, erm, body that went a long way towards making that walk famous.) He has the run. He has the laserbeam blue-eyed glare. And...hmm, that's possibly about it, because the script doesn't give him much else to try to replicate. The remainder of Starsky's mannerisms come from the remainder of his personality, which movie-Starsky shares none of. Starsky's the "bouncy energetic one" and Hutch is the "laid-back one," and that's about all the high-level description the original and movie versions share. It's actually pretty interesting to see how the movie script translates "bouncy and energetic" into "feverishly-conscientious and by-the-book."
As for Wilson, well, I fell for him from frame one in Shanghai Noon, and pretty much did the same here. He brings a similar sort of sweetness and gentle goofiness to both roles, and I go for it every time. So what if movie-Hutch is even further removed from the original than movie-Starsky, to the point where he's unrecognizable as the same character? I could pretty much overlook it, because I enjoyed watching Wilson so much. The script translates "laid-back" into "slips around the edges of the law whenever possible," which is a highly-unusual take but Wilson works with it well. Right from the little freeze-framed grimace he gives during his opening scene, he had me.
And Wilson and Stiller work well together, which is the point of the whole thing anyway. I've never seen any of their joint movies, so this was new to me.
What I really couldn't help liking was the attention to detail. Call me superficial, but I couldn't resist a little thrill at seeing some things replicated for the big screen. The Torino has never looked more gorgeous. There's the exterior of Hutch's house. The outfits. Starsky's automatic and Hutch's six-inch revolver. Starsky's left-handed holster. Even the exterior of Vince Vaughn's place looks maddeningly familiar. (Strangely, despite the obvious homework, Capt. Dobey's name is misspelled in the credits.)
And then, all the little visual echoes. I think they were wise to only replicate looks and themes without re-creating entire scenes (unlike, for example, The Brady Bunch Movie). Thus Starsky and Hutch questioning Vaughn's character while seated side-by-side on an ornate sofa. Being shirtless-with-holsters. Hutch's awful cowboy getup. Starsky staring enrapt at Hutch while he sings. The Torino fishtailing on city streets. Running down alleys. Driving real fast with the Mars light inside. Hutch's place getting broken into. The kid that Hutch looks after. A destroyed, then restored car.
And subtler things, like re-creating the running-on-the-beach photoshoot (now watching that was surreal). Starsky's two-fingered typing method. "Don't Give Up on Us Baby." And Starsky volunteering to give up his badge in a grand gesture, only to hastily retract it seconds later.
Last but not least is the send-up of the famed homoerotic undertones. Oh boy, they don't forget 'em. What could have had me cringing instead had me in stitches, because Wilson and Stiller wisely play their OTT situations without OTT winking.
And then the cameo, or should that be cameos? Oh, it broke the flow of the movie all to bits. But gosh, it was nice to see them again.
I suppose that this point I should start getting worried that stuff from the movie is going to start getting mixed into canon and leak back into fic. But right now I'm enjoying the silliness of the movie too much to think about that yet.
