The Cranky Critic reviews

TWO MUCH


Starring: Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, Joan Cusack, Danny Aiello and Eli Wallach
Directed by: Fernando Trueba
"Suggested" Ticket Price: $0

From Cranky's Book of Bad Movies. Chapter Two. Verse Much.

And the Money Men shall go to the Men in Suits and say, "Yea, we shall make a wacky kind of comedy full of Romance and Mistaken Identities, as they did in the Nineteen and Thirties."

And the Men in Suits shall say, "So Be It."

And Antonio Banderas shall play Arturo (Art) Dodge, dirtball who swindles widows out of their inheritances. He shall not want to do this, but his art gallery cannot make any money and he owes big. And lying shall come easy to him.

And Melanie Griffith shall play Betty, who lives on a planet which is not this Earth. And she shall fall for said Art, and they shall have sex and become engaged before the first Date.

And Betty shall have Darryl Hannah as Liz, her Protective and Intelligent sister. And Art shall fall for Liz and pretend to be his twin brother, Bart, and therewith court her. And she shall swoon.

For she, too, has cowflop for brains.

And there shall be a Car. And it shall be a classic, cobalt blue Mustang and it shall be smarter than all three main characters. It shall drive itself from location to location, making Cranky notice what would normally be called continuity errors. And it shall have a mutant healing ability power, like Wolverine of the X-Men, for it shall be smashed and rendered to scratchy little pieces while senile old men drive it. And then it shall be healed. And then it shall be smashed, again.

And Cranky shall look at his watch when he finally feels a laugh rise from deep within. And his watch shall say "You've been sitting here for an HOUR, Meathead."

And he shall sit in a seat that creaks very loudly in a theater with an audience that is far too quiet for a comedy.

And Cranky shall be self-conscious.

And Cranky shall change his seat.

And Cranky shall again look at his watch when he feels laughter arise. And it shall be an hour later.

And this bomb will not yet be over.

And Cranky shall not laugh at jokes about senility. And Cranky shall say "Shame on you, Eli Wallach, for taking such a part."

And Cranky shall wonder how the Devil Danny Aiello got sucked into this morass as well.

And Cranky shall wonder if that was indeed Fernando Lamas in the wedding scene. And his head will Shake in Disbelief.

And Yea, though he would push the plunger on the new lo-flo toilet, and send "Two Much" to its final resting place, Cranky would mutter a quiet word of thanks for Vincent Schiavelli, as a wine steward who actually brought something to a thankless role. A very small role, but a grand relief.


For it costs $8 to see a first run movie here in New York City. And Cranky shall be relieved that "Two Much" is not playing at the theater chain which has raised its ticket price to $8.50, and he shall toss the four bits saved to Schiavelli for his Suffering. Amen.

"Two Much" was so bad, Cranky would have preferred to sit through "Heat," again.


The Cranky Critic (tm) and (c) 1996 Chuck Schwartz. All Rights Reserved.

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