Trailer:
“You’re not a real cop. You’re not even a real inspector. You’re just a publicity stunt we have to put up with.”
Seven years after their last superhero film (The Rocketeer in 1992) Disney was finally ready to get back into the superhero game with another quirky, silly superhero in likeness to Condorman. Who do they drag into it? Poor Matthew Broderick, fresh off his success playing Simba in The Lion King.
It is almost impossible for me to write this review without comparing it to Robocop at least once. When broken down to it’s bare essentials, the central concept is pretty much the same. The movie features a security guard by the name of Brown who only wants to do the right thing and protect the innocent. He currently works for a research facility leading the “gadget program”. Unfortunately when the research is stolen and the inventor murdered. Brown chases down the killers and almost dies in the process.
In order to save him, the daughter of the inventor orders him to become the test subject of the Gadget Program, without so much as a single consent form. Thus Inspector Gadget is born! Unfortunately the villainous “Claw” is still on the loose and is plotting to use Inspector Gadget to create his very own army of robot soldier to sell to countries. Which is what most people would do with the technology anyways.
Yet although I may be able to compare the concept of Inspector Gadget to Robocop, the story in comparison is a joke (almost literally). The film is far more comedic, or at least attempts to be. Most of the jokes miss and only really a couple from Matthew Broderick are actually funny. The film is too blatantly targeted at the kiddies featuring numerous kicks to the balls and fart jokes galore.
Most the actors seem uninspired, over the top, or just plain untalented. The only person in the entire film that gave a decent performance was Broderick as the title character. Even his stuff was over the top and ridiculous most of the time, but at least he felt like he was at least trying with what little he had to go off of. At times you really did feel sorry for him when even after getting his “amazing” powers, he still isn’t taken seriously by anyone.
As for the villain “Claw”, he starts off in the beginning being actually fairly intimidating but just becomes more and more goofy. He is intended to be a more “intelligent” opponent for Inspector Gadget but most of the time appears just as stupid as his comrades. It is as if someone watched the first few minutes of the film, decided he was too scary for five year olds, and sent them back to make him more of bumbling clown.
As a physical threat Claw creates a robotic clone of Brown that terrorizes the city. When I say terrorize, I mean, blow up half of it and not one cop even tries to stop him. By this point there should have been army satellites shooting rockets at him from orbit. Then after all that “badassness” the Gadget clone dissolves into one of the most goofy, stupid fight scenes of all time.
As a sidekick, the inspector has use of an annoying talking car. Though some of the effects with it were cool, the personality and jokes fired off by it couldn't be more painfully unfunny. If you ever wondered why none of Bonds cars talked back to him, here is the reason. I would have just deliberately wrecked the damn thing after only a few hours of patrol.
Of course there also has to be a damsel in distress in here. Inspector Gadget is very careful to hit up on every superhero cliche over the course of this film. The main love interest here is Dr. Brenda Bradford (Joely Fisher). She takes over the gadget program after her father dies and is the one to transform Brown into the prototype. She does a reasonably good job with the roll and makes do with what she has to work with. Though Robobrenda, the ditsy cheerleader copycat of the character, is another matter all together. At this point Fisher loses any sense of pride and any points in terms of this movie for the simple fact that she didn't have the dignity to put her foot down and say "go to hell".
The film also throws in an unnecessary love triangle between Claw, Brenda, and Brown. It is hammy, goofy, and not in any way effective in terms of giving the film emotional support or engaging comedy. It never really goes anywhere and it is hard to believe that at any point Brenda was close friends with the jackass who is Claw, let alone having any sort of romantic feelings for him.
Overall the concept was solid and they could have actually done something funny and clever with it. But instead due to the shoddy scripting it became a mess that only someone under the age of ten could appreciate or enjoy (as I did enjoy it as a little kid). The only redeeming quality about it was some of the gadgets and effects were fun and imaginative. But other than film has no heart and no purpose, despite trying to pretend it does.
FINAL RATING: 3/10- (30%)
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