The All New Adventures of Laurel & Hardy in For Love or Mummy (1999)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

It's unimaginable that anyone could hope to think that they could capture the humor, magic and chemistry of the funniest duo in comedy history. I kept thinking this is more of a Three Stooges movie minus one. The premise is trite and the physical comedy is far too over the top, probably because the director/producers felt that the physical comedy of the 1930s is to subtle for modern audiences. There is too much forced situations set up to just set up broad, gratuitous destruction. L&H worked because the two could play off of each other and the situations they're innocence and naivete got them into. This movie completely misses the mark by a wide mile what made Laurel and Hardy comedies genuinely funny and should never have been made.

Brief summary: This movie demeans everyone it touches. That means you.First off, let me say I'm not a purist, and this might have been funny for a few minutes. The impersonations are not bad. But overall it's just dull and excruciatingly not funny. A few simple jokes are repeated over and over again.It's clear that this movies only exists to squeeze the last few dollars out of the now-trademarked Laurel and Hardy. The producers cannot have any real regard for their place in film history, or their talents. This is what offended me the most.Of course, my daughter liked it, so I'm also a failure as a parent ;)

Isn't it a tad odd that a L&H remake would use a plot that is so typically Abbott & Costello?Yeah, the story is absolute crap, but the two leads really ARE dead ringers for the original duo. My one beef with their very decent mimicry is that Hardy only gives one trademark reaction look of frustration at the audience. This thing is by NO means great, but it's definitely worth a look.

That's the sound of Stan and Ollie spinning in their graves. I won't bother listing the fundamental flaws of this movie as they're so obvious they go without saying. Small things, like this being "The All New Adventures of Laurel and Hardy" despite the stars being dead for over thirty years when it was made. Little things like that. A bad idea would be to have actors playing buffoons whom just happen to be called Laurel and Hardy. As bad as that is, it might have worked. For a really bad idea, try casting two actors to impersonate the duo. Okay, they might claim to be nephews, but the end result is the same. Bronson Pinchot can be funny. Okay, forget his wacky foreigner "Cousin Larry" schtick in Perfect Strangers, and look at him in True Romance. Here though, he stinks. It's probably not all his fault, and, like the director and the support cast - all of who are better than the material - he was probably just desperate for money. There are those who claim Americans find it difficult to master an effective English accent. This cause is not helped here by Pinchot. What is Stan? Welsh? Iranian? Pakistani? Only in Stan's trademark yelp does he come close, though as the yelp is overdone to the point of tedium that's nothing to write home about. Gailard Sartain does slightly better as Ollie, though it's like saying what's worse - stepping in dog dirt or a kick in the knackers? Remember the originals with their split-second timing, intuitive teamwork and innate loveability? Well that's absent altogether, replaced with two stupid old men and jokes so mistimed you could park a bus through the gaps. Whereas the originals had plots that could be summed up in a couple of panels, this one has some long-winded Mummy hokum (and what a lousy title!) that's mixed in with the boys' fraternity scenario. I can't claim to have seen every single one of Laurel and Hardy's 108 movies, but I think it's a safe bet that even their nadir was leagues ahead of this. Maybe the major problem is that the originals were sort-of playing themselves, or at least using their own accents. It at least felt natural and unforced, as opposed to the contrived caricatures Pinchot and Sartain are given. And since when did Stan do malapropisms, and so many at that? "I was gonna give you a standing cremation"; "I would like to marinate my friend." Stop it! Only notable moment is a reference to Bozo the Clown, the cartoon character who shared Larry Harmon's L & H comic. Harmon of course bought the name copyright (how disconcerting to see a ® after Laurel and Hardy) and was co-director and producer of this travesty. Questions abound. Would Stan and Ollie do fart gags if they were alive today? Would they glass mummies with broken bottles? Have Stan being smacked in the genitals with a spear and end on a big CGI-finale? Let's hope not.I did laugh once, but I think that was just in disbelief at how terrible it all is. Why was this film made in the first place? Who did the makers think would like it? Possibly the worst movie I've ever seen, an absolute abhorrence I grew sick of watching after just the first five minutes. About as much fun as having your head trapped in a vice while a red-hot poker and stinging nettles are forcibly inserted up your back passage.