Review of The Master of Disguise (2002) by Erik B — 19 Sep 2010

Oh yeah, this was really stupid. Dana Carvey plays an incredibly annoying Italian guy with an even more annoying voice. Strangely, his accent sounds heavier than those of his two parents, played respectively by Edie McClurg and James Brolin, who I guess has decided to leave the Oscar nominations to son Josh. The movie basically consist of Carvey (with the help of his grandfather played by Harold Gould) trying to solve a mystery by jumping in and out of various characters, some better than others, while trying to woo his new assistant (Jennifer Esposito). She eventually becomes attracted to him because she is an extremely good-looking and intelligent woman while he is a not-so-good looking idiot, therefore the Laws of Comedy naturally come into effect (if it were not for them, family sitcoms and Judd Apatow would not exist). It also has running gag in which the main villain (Brent Spiner) farts every time he has an evil laugh even though it is not funny the first time it is done so there was really no point of repeating it. For the record, I am not totally opposed to fart jokes, but I think there is a right way of doing it and a wrong way of doing it; this falls into the latter category. I think you can make your own judgement from here.

To be honest, this review is not as harsh as it could be and for two reasons. First of all, I used to watch this type of stuff all the time when I was younger and have only recently become more mature about how I judge them (sort of). Secondly, I like Dana Carvey; he was great on "Saturday Night Live" as well as the "Wayne's World" movies (he recently recaptured that former glory with his appearance in the Funny or Die video "Presidential Reunion"). But ever since then, he seems to have been unable to find a project that is on par with his talents. At least this movie (tried to) play to his strength, which is character acting, as opposed to having him play straight like he did in the very unfunny film "Opportunity Knocks". At the moment, he is only working part-time in Hollywood anyway, but if he ever decides to be more active, I hope that he gets material that is of better quality than this film. Anyway, I do not recommend it unless you are bored.