Review of Kansas City (1996) by Merkin M — 31 Jul 2005

In many a way, Dude Where's My Car? is an unbelievably lousy movie. But once you recognize that, and are willing to move past that, it's actually almost watchable rainy day entertainment. From the very beginning the movie jumps at your face with a ridiculously bad....well everything really, the whole thing. Alltogether it seems like something targeted at people under the age of ten, but then again much of the content and subject matter doesn't seem at all suitable for so young. Anyway some jokes are able enough to keep you entertained, like the two guys with funny scandinavian accents, they're funny. And some other stuff.

Any Which way You Can has Clint Eastwood with the orangotang again, this time in a clearly more franchised and less cinematically important action comedy. A lot of the edges and most of the realism has been filed off, but still what's left is perfectly good entertainment. And really, even when the jokes are not particularly bright, they're delivered with such visible love and care that you're not very likely to find the same dignified devotion in very many modern comedies. All in all it's a very lovable movie. Set in that age-old beautiful dream reality where people never die, a barfight's a good thing and the bad guys shake hands with the good guys in the end.

Robert Altman's Kansas City is a great, not entirely successful, but jazzy film.