Review of Inspector Gadget (1999) by Patrick S — 16 Jan 2010

The thing is this. I never liked the Inspector Gadget cartoon. Gadget was stupid, it wasn't funny, and Claw was a weak villain with the gimmick of his hand only being shown petting his cat. The only good things about the cartoon was the theme song, Penny and Brain. So with the movie existing, I figure that it can't be that hard to make it better than the cartoon and it is. That doesn't mean it's good at all, I just like it more. So with that out of the way, Go-Go Gadget Review!

This is like uh, Batman Begins for Inspector Gadget. And by that I mean it's an origin story in a slightly more realistic sense. Not that realistic but you'll get what I mean. Matthew Broderick is John Brown, Security Guard, who, through WACKY HIJINKS, who gets involved with a murder/burglary led by Claw, played by Rupert Everett, ends up almost dying by the hand of Claw. But it's ok since through some other WACKY HIJINKS Brown's bowling ball crushes his hand which we get to see....you know, for kids. But thanks to the very sexy Love Interest, Brown gets robotized and becomes Inspector Gadget. He then does some WACKY HIJINKS of his own learning his robotness before he vows revenge on Claw. And Claw makes an evil robot of Gadget just to mess with him.

For what is worth, as a live-action version the look of the film isn't too bad. It's bright, colorful and a bit energetic. The world of Gadget is fairly translated to the live-action world and since I never liked the cartoon I can less about the liberties taken with Claw, like showing his face and the rest of his body. I can attack Rupert Everett for sucking out of control but not his face. And in fact, most everyone in the movie sucks out of control here. Broderick is just bored and lazy...except when he's out playing evil Gadget, he might be stereotypically over-the-top evil but he was entertaining dammit! And the only other actors worth mentioning is Joely Fisher as Love Interest who's only there to look hot...which is very much and Michelle Trachtenberg who plays Penny with absolutely NOTHING TO DO! Why bother having Penny if you're going to waste her like this.

There are, however, some good things that I did like about this movie. For one thing, there's the Gadget-mobile. He may be voice by a somewhat jive-talking DL Hughley but he does have some funny lines that are somewhat fourth-wall breaking like "Buckle your seatbelt, it's a Disney movie!". There's also a great throw-away gag with evil Gadget terrorizing the city with a shadow puppet of a T-Rex...no, that's not the gag. Then a Japanese guy shows up and says "I left Tokyo to avoid this!" which is the only thing that actually made me really laugh.

Look, this movie may be a bore-fest and it may only work for kids and people on the right type of substances but it's not the suck-fest it's supposed to be. At times it's kinda cute and there's the effects are pretty good for a cartoon-like universe. It tells an alright origin story and there's some references to the cartoon that fans would probably not hate...if they can get past the face of Claw. But this is something I won't ever watch this again....well, maybe just Joely Fisher's scenes.