Stick with Nick

I'm not even sure if Nickelodeon still runs the animated series Inspector Gadget, but if it does, watch that instead. I grew up on that show, with its clueless hero, his brainiac dog and niece, and his poor chief who always managed to get himself blown up. It was cute, it was funny, it was a good cartoon. But Disney seems to have a recent trend in turning good cartoons into bad movies. Inspector Gadget is the latest example of this phenomenon.

Matthew Broderick stars as John Brown, a police officer wannabe who, after an unsuccessful attempt to catch murderer Dr. Claw (Rupert Everett), has his body destroyed by a car explosion and is provided a new one by the pretty scientist Brenda Bradford (Joley Fischer) whose father was the victim of the murder. The body comes equipped with a myriad of gadgets, and these are what will be used to catch Dr. Claw and bring him to justice.

As usual, Penny has a lot more to do with catching the bad guy than the Inspector does; he bumbles his way through most of the movie, causing physical harm to many and laying waste to a good deal of the town. Brain has little to do with this movie as a cute beagle who spends most of his time tucked under Penny's arm. Taking Brain's place in importance is the Gadgetmobile, a wisecracking car who is most responsible for the apprehension of the bad guys.

A cast of supporting dodos rounds out this movie, from SNL veteran Cheri Oteri as the thoroughly annoying mayor to Andy Dick as Claw's wimpy mad scientist assistant. Instead of the menacing, never-seen presence that Dr. Claw presents in the cartoon, the movie version is goony at best. And his imitation Inspector Gadget, who looks little like Broderick except for the clothes, goes beyond obnoxious as a menace to society. Cartoony action and bad slapstick are the order of the day, but it was done so poorly that I only found myself chuckling a couple times.

This movie had very few redeeming qualities that I could see. Yes, the gadgets were kind of cool, but I'd much rather see them in cartoon form on the clueless inspector I grew to love, excellently voiced by Don Adams. My advice to you: skip this movie and find some old episodes of the animated series instead. It's much funnier and not nearly as disgusting.