Jeff's Reviews

Thoughts on every movie I've ever seen.

Fierce Creatures (1997)

Directed by Fred Schepisi, Robert Young

Starring John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Robert Lindsay

Author

A few funny moments (mostly by Kline), and a few cornball moments (it just wasn’t as witty as A Fish Called Wanda). The story was decent, but it seemed that it wrapped itself up a little too quickly at the end. And unlike A Fish Called Wanda, the story delved into a darker black comedy than before. Nice recurring spider scenes from Arachnophobia.

With only a decent story, the film was saved by the cast and their history together in A Fish Called Wanda. The actors all played virtually the same characters with the same quirks and the same relationships and the same cool semi-palindromic names as in A Fish Called Wanda. The film was made in a refreshingly fun spirit (probably because the actors were so comfortable with each other), topped off with a cool Wanda reference at the end. Unfortunately, even this pleasantly traditional comedy troupe has been affected by the super-fast dialogue (which is irritating an unnatural if it is not funny), excessive close-ups, excessive editing, goofy slapstick, and special effects (two Klines, animatronics) of Post-Modernism.

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