Dudley Do-Right (1999)

The Worst Film Ever

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

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

There had been a fad in Hollywood decades ago for making live-action versions of old television cartoons. None really worked, but this one has done more badly than the others. Of course, it didn't help that Dudley Do-Right cartoons were invariably shorts, rather ones that beget complicated situations.The cartoon had the premise of a strong and handsome but dense hero doing battle against the villain Snidely Whiplash, succeeding in the end when he finally uses his head. (One episode has him fooling Snidely into thinking some dynamite exploded when it didn't because he tricked him using a recording of an explosion-but Dudley had failed to defuse the real dynamite.) So what happens here? Snidely starts a fake gold rush, and Dudley eventually foils his plans. This could have been the basis of something good, but a confusing and unfunny story, ethnic stereotypes, and performers who don't correspond very well to their cartoon equivalents make this a bad movie. Even Dudley Do-Right completists should stay away.

Around the 1960's, there were the hilarious cartoon series featuring the adventures of Canada's most birdbrained but lovable Mountie, Dudley Do Right. I'm not sure who voiced Dudley Do Right, but I sure wish to congratulate him. I got the DVD version of the 1999 movie of the same name. But, wait a minute! Why is it all in live-action?! Shouldn't it all be in animation? Who's responsible for this crap-fest?! Brendan Fraser as Dudley Do Right?! What the flying flip is wrong with this guy?! All the characters in this movie(Including Snidley Whiplash) look absolutely nothing like the characters in the cartoon. Again, who's responsible for this abomination?! Let me guess, it's the same guy who made Barney's Great Adventure, right? What?! It's the same guy who made George of the Jungle?! Good grief!

all the jokes was so worst. Barnedn Fraser don't know to choice a good movies which aren't the Mummy's movies. OK, he played good as well in George in Jungle.... that's all. i hated the twisted of bad/good/bad/good....... it just make headaches. also- i hated Nell's char. she isn't so active in the movie and don't so funny (alike ALL the chars....)in short: don't watch it. don't waste 77 mins on this movie. better to waste 77 mins on another movie.the idea of the story started nice- but it's quickly goes down and down as a tree rolled in a river and tries not sallow in the water.. nothing save it else. the end of the movie just make a shame to horses and to the vievers that wasted time on the movie.