Mr. Magoo

Stanley Tong, 1997
Rotten Tomatoes score: 4%

Mr. Magoo is one of several live-action adaptations of old cartoons that came out in the 1990s and early 2000s. I've already told you Richie Rich was underrated, and I feel the same way about The Flintstones, but I'm afraid this one doesn't get off quite so easy.

Why is Mr. Magoo now a vegetable cannery owner? Did that ever happen in the cartoons? And why is he producing operas for charity? And what's with that hairstyle? It isn't Leslie Nielsen's usual hair, and I thought Mr. Magoo was bald.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. The basic plot, as far as I can tell, is that Mr. Magoo has somehow come into possession of a priceless jewel called the Star of Kuristan (not to be confused with Kurdistan or Kyrgyzstan), and at least half a dozen characters, each one stupider than the last, want to take it away. Mr. Magoo, of course, is oblivious and assumes this rock-hard, fist-sized gemstone is a ball for his dog to play with.

A woman who calls herself Prunella (Kelly Lynch) ingratiates herself to Mr. Magoo to try to get him to part with the jewel. This results in a series of pointless cartoon pratfalls involving Magoo's nearsightedness. Meanwhile, two federal agents (Ernie Hudson and some other guy) sneak into his house, suspecting Magoo himself of the theft. This results in a series of pointless cartoon pratfalls involving the agents' clumsiness.

Simultaneously, Magoo's nephew Waldo, who is even dumber than Magoo, has fallen in love with a dignitary from Kuristan (Jennifer Garner in a role that consists mostly of standing absolutely stock-still and smiling vapidly at Waldo). I don't recall any pratfalls in this plot thread, but I wasn't paying all that much attention.

Eventually, these plots collide when Waldo discovers the Star of Kuristan in Magoo's possession. Unfortunately, a second criminal named Bob, who likes to go around trying to garrote people (fortunately he only ever succeeds with inanimate objects), steals the jewel. Bob drives away in Magoo's Studebaker, which has been tricked out with a highly refractive windshield, causing Bob to drive out of control. Magoo and Waldo, accompanied by Prunella, who now claims to be an FBI agent, give chase in a car that for no apparent reason looks like a giant eggplant.

...I was going to try to describe the plot all the way to the end, but my courage fails me. This is so damn confusing. There are so many people after this jewel that it's hard to remember—and impossible to care—who they all are. For most of the movie, Malcolm MacDowell seems to be the main bad guy, but once he gets his hands on the jewel, a new and more dangerous bad guy (Miguel Ferrer) gets thrown into the mix. This results in an excursion for Magoo and Waldo to Brazil (though it seems to be a part of Brazil where everyone forgot they're supposed to speak Portuguese rather than Spanish). Why? Why was any of this necessary?

Prunella (whose real name is Luanne) is also a bad guy, and she kung fu fights Miguel Ferrer for possession of the jewel. Then she and Magoo fall over a waterfall in an inflatable dinghy, but she escapes by hooking herself to a cable dangling from a helicopter, and he escapes by using the dinghy as a parachute. I guess that's the end.

---

The biggest problem with this movie is the most obvious one: there's nowhere near enough material in a Mr. Magoo cartoon to be stretched to an hour and a half. There was barely enough for a five-minute cartoon. How about a 90-minute Bazooka Joe movie? What's Funky Winkerbean up to these days?

In every cartoon, Mr. Magoo's nearsightedness makes him oblivious to the various perils he finds himself in, but he miraculously survives by a series of coincidences. They knew that couldn't be a whole movie, so they added this boring, incomprehensible jewel caper and kept introducing more and more characters, all of whom are one-dimensional plot devices and would have been better suited to a cartoon short. My favorite character was the dog.

Of course, I can't neglect to mention the disclaimer at the end of the movie, which reads in its entirety:

The preceding film is not intended as an accurate portrayal of blindness or poor eyesight. Blindness or poor eyesight does not imply an impairment of one's ability to be employed in a wide range of jobs, raise a family, perform important civic duties or engage in a well-rounded life.

All people with disabilities deserve a fair chance to live and work without being impeded by prejudice.

When Siskel and Ebert reviewed this movie, Ebert commented that he never found Mr. Magoo offensive, and Siskel added that the disclaimer was the funniest part of the movie. I agree. (And who ever said Mr. Magoo was blind? He's not blind; he just needs glasses and is very stupid.) Then again, I guess there is something demeaning about the idea that nearsighted people are so clueless they might go blundering around skiing on ironing boards and mistaking paddle-wheels for escalators. Maybe the disclaimer would have gone over better if it had said this:

The preceding film is not intended as an accurate portrayal of anything. Blindness or poor eyesight does not imply an impairment of one's ability to perform in charity operas or thwart an international jewel heist. Nearsighted people can have a healthy, productive life, as long as they don't try to ski on ironing boards or use rubber dinghies as a parachute.

All people with disabilities deserve a fair chance to live and work without having to watch movies like this.

Let's also take this opportunity to apologize to government agents, Brazilians, and people from either Kurdistan or Kyrgyzstan. And Leslie Nielsen, who is way, way too talented for this.

Sorry. We're sorry. We're very sorry you watched this. Maybe we'll have better luck with "Rocky and Bullwinkle"...

...

Well... four percent? All right, fine.