Walt Disney Pictures, Rated PG
Directed by Stanley Tong
Written by Pat Proft and Tom Sherohman

This movie, if nothing else proves something about Leslie Nielsen. He's only as good as his writing. Now I don't know about Tom Sherohman, but I think Pat Proft's original script was probably better than this (let's hope). Pat has worked with the famous trio of Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker, and he did an okay job writing by himself with "High School High". But ZAZ turned out the excellent "Naked Gun" films which made Leslie Nielsen hilarious, not to mention his turn in "Airplane!", arguably the best comedy ever made. But Mel Brooks (who I don't think actually wrote "Dracula: Dead and Loving It") and Sherohman can't make a good Leslie Nielsen movie (and the two amateurs who wrote "Spy Hard" did a poor imitation of "Naked Gun" as well). This is what a high school play written by the high schoolers themselves would probably turn out to be if they wanted to make "Mr. Magoo" live action. First of all, Mr. Magoo is one joke and in a 7 to 30 minute cartoon, that joke is still at least somewhat funny. But stretched out to 90 minutes (75 was 75 too much for "It's Pat!") it's terribly boring and you want to cry because Leslie's stuck in this movie. He looks nothing like Mr. Magoo and only talks slightly differently than he would playing Frank Drebin (just like when he played Dracula). I hear one of the Zuckers (probably the one who didn't try to make serious films like "Ghost" and "First Knight") is making a new film. Please hire Nielsen again! There are maybe 2 good jokes in the film, but for the life of me I can't recall them. And Stanley Tong needs to stick with making Jackie Chan movies. This movie is historical, however for having the most pointless outtake reel ever put on screen, not to mention the most pointless PC apology to blind people. Can you tell I didn't like this one? The fact that it was poorly framed in my theatre didn't help matters. * 1/2

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