There are two kinds of bad comedies. The first kind - let's call them the 'Adam Sandlers' - lazily try to dispute their indisputable 'bad' status. Braying with smarmy self-importance and bleating for affirmation, they're all the more contemptible for it. The second kind are the Dudley Do-Rights: sweet, innocent creatures, either dopily unaware or uncaring of their fundamental mediocrity. Content to simply be, they provide the basest of childish entertainment at all costs. We're talking the kind of cinema where the same 'getting bonked in the head by a loose floorboard' gag, if you can call it that, is repeated not once. Not twice, not three times. But upwards of eight. You know -in case you didn't get enough in Brendan Fraser's former George of the Jungle. But that's not the only trick up the film's sleeve! Love farting horses? Then oh boy do we have a show for you!
Tone is everything, though. And it's because of this that Dudley Do-Right, almost worrisomely idiotic as it (mostly) is, is resoundingly hard not to take to. It's unflinchingly cheery and earnest, banking hard on every Canadian stereotype in the book without a hint of ironic revisionism. In doing so, it steadily wears the viewer down until it's almost impossible to resist a sheepish smile creeping across their face. It helps that creator Jay Ward's sly sensibility of playing things so ludicrously straight that a sneaky cleverness creeps up (we get a welcome reminder in the film's fantastic, old-timey 'Fractured Fairy tales' opening short) is dutifully replicated, if not perfected, by writer/director Hugh Wilson. He makes particularly good use of a joyfully hokey narrator, and allows occasional cheeky bits to creep in, enough to keep adults from drifting off entirely amidst the lazy slapstick and tritely wholesome morals. For example: here, uber-fiend Snidely Whiplash has evolved past simply tying damsels to train tracks (but don't worry - they've left one such sequence for posterity) to a more devious scheme involving rent-controlled properties and converting the superbly named Semi-Happy Valley into an exploitatively garish, faux gold-rush tourist town. It's a ploy so grotesque that it's, naturally, almost too close to home to laugh at, especially when Ottawa signs off on it for economic stimulation and job creation, leaving contemporary Canadian audiences flinching with unwanted flashbacks to the methodology of a certain unsavoury former administration (but let's not harp on about that).
Sure, there's a bit of a clash between the film's overall rustic (read: cheap) look and the oddly inflated production values in its dance and vehicular chase scenes (though I'll never say no to impromptu tanks in a climactic showdown). And yes, there's a recurring bit involving a First Nations community which isn't as tongue-in-cheek as it'd like to think, dabbling in dubious racial politics (and don't worry - Brendan Fraser gets in on the redface too. Errgh...). It's mitigated (barely) by the superb commentary of how intensely 'authentic' it is, while the Chief later grumbles that they're "basically doing dinner theatre here", with their Riverdance bit being a particularly good seller. But hey - if Wilson's tentative forays into sociopolitical satire aren't for you, there's always a woodland training montage with a gamely silly comedy drunk Eric Idle, a surprisingly tasteful nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark with Alfred Molina, and... y'know...a bit where Dudley crashes around his lodge wearing a giant moose head. And you know you're a hoser if you can't appreciate a giant moose head gag.
Brendan Fraser has built a career around playing adorably dim live action cartoon characters, and is astute enough to play Dudley's clueless earnestness wholly straight. He doesn't have much to work with here, but he pours on the charm like no tomorrow, and is winningly affable for it. Similarly, the always superb Alfred Molina is exquisitely cartoony, bagging the majority of the film's meagre laughs, and embodying Snidely Whiplash's trademark sneer with such outrageous commitment that it's almost alarming to see him turn around and realize he's still a three-dimensional, live action human. The normally intolerable Sarah Jessica Parker delivers the film's most remarkable feat by being...tolerable; in fact, her simpering vacuous Nell is almost likable, even vaguely funny at times (although juxtaposing her apparent slew of postsecondary degrees with her voluminous stupidity is a conceit which wears thin very quickly). Finally, adult viewers caught in the existential throes of 'how did I get here' might recognize Jack Kehler, otherwise known as the Dude's awkward landlord from The Big Lebowski, playing an expanded version of the same character as Snidely's second-in-command here, which brings delights of its own.
Dudley Do-Right is not a good film by any stretch of the imagination, and even the youngest of kids are likely to call the bluff of its lazy, repetitive, shallow attempts at humour. And yet, Wilson's touch is so perennially chipper that the simplistic adventures of everyone's favourite cartoon Mountie here - thanks largely to tireless efforts by Molina, and Fraser's innate, goofy charisma - are still liable to raise a smile. And if you aren't able to suspend some measure of disbelief and ride out Dudley Do- Right with kernels of the most forgiving enjoyment... well then, take off, eh?
-4/10
Tone is everything, though. And it's because of this that Dudley Do-Right, almost worrisomely idiotic as it (mostly) is, is resoundingly hard not to take to. It's unflinchingly cheery and earnest, banking hard on every Canadian stereotype in the book without a hint of ironic revisionism. In doing so, it steadily wears the viewer down until it's almost impossible to resist a sheepish smile creeping across their face. It helps that creator Jay Ward's sly sensibility of playing things so ludicrously straight that a sneaky cleverness creeps up (we get a welcome reminder in the film's fantastic, old-timey 'Fractured Fairy tales' opening short) is dutifully replicated, if not perfected, by writer/director Hugh Wilson. He makes particularly good use of a joyfully hokey narrator, and allows occasional cheeky bits to creep in, enough to keep adults from drifting off entirely amidst the lazy slapstick and tritely wholesome morals. For example: here, uber-fiend Snidely Whiplash has evolved past simply tying damsels to train tracks (but don't worry - they've left one such sequence for posterity) to a more devious scheme involving rent-controlled properties and converting the superbly named Semi-Happy Valley into an exploitatively garish, faux gold-rush tourist town. It's a ploy so grotesque that it's, naturally, almost too close to home to laugh at, especially when Ottawa signs off on it for economic stimulation and job creation, leaving contemporary Canadian audiences flinching with unwanted flashbacks to the methodology of a certain unsavoury former administration (but let's not harp on about that).
Sure, there's a bit of a clash between the film's overall rustic (read: cheap) look and the oddly inflated production values in its dance and vehicular chase scenes (though I'll never say no to impromptu tanks in a climactic showdown). And yes, there's a recurring bit involving a First Nations community which isn't as tongue-in-cheek as it'd like to think, dabbling in dubious racial politics (and don't worry - Brendan Fraser gets in on the redface too. Errgh...). It's mitigated (barely) by the superb commentary of how intensely 'authentic' it is, while the Chief later grumbles that they're "basically doing dinner theatre here", with their Riverdance bit being a particularly good seller. But hey - if Wilson's tentative forays into sociopolitical satire aren't for you, there's always a woodland training montage with a gamely silly comedy drunk Eric Idle, a surprisingly tasteful nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark with Alfred Molina, and... y'know...a bit where Dudley crashes around his lodge wearing a giant moose head. And you know you're a hoser if you can't appreciate a giant moose head gag.
Brendan Fraser has built a career around playing adorably dim live action cartoon characters, and is astute enough to play Dudley's clueless earnestness wholly straight. He doesn't have much to work with here, but he pours on the charm like no tomorrow, and is winningly affable for it. Similarly, the always superb Alfred Molina is exquisitely cartoony, bagging the majority of the film's meagre laughs, and embodying Snidely Whiplash's trademark sneer with such outrageous commitment that it's almost alarming to see him turn around and realize he's still a three-dimensional, live action human. The normally intolerable Sarah Jessica Parker delivers the film's most remarkable feat by being...tolerable; in fact, her simpering vacuous Nell is almost likable, even vaguely funny at times (although juxtaposing her apparent slew of postsecondary degrees with her voluminous stupidity is a conceit which wears thin very quickly). Finally, adult viewers caught in the existential throes of 'how did I get here' might recognize Jack Kehler, otherwise known as the Dude's awkward landlord from The Big Lebowski, playing an expanded version of the same character as Snidely's second-in-command here, which brings delights of its own.
Dudley Do-Right is not a good film by any stretch of the imagination, and even the youngest of kids are likely to call the bluff of its lazy, repetitive, shallow attempts at humour. And yet, Wilson's touch is so perennially chipper that the simplistic adventures of everyone's favourite cartoon Mountie here - thanks largely to tireless efforts by Molina, and Fraser's innate, goofy charisma - are still liable to raise a smile. And if you aren't able to suspend some measure of disbelief and ride out Dudley Do- Right with kernels of the most forgiving enjoyment... well then, take off, eh?
-4/10