OLD DOGS

“OLD DOGS” (Robin Williams & John Travolta)

What is that saying about old dogs? Oh yes, that you can’t teach them new tricks...
Apparently you can’t teach them anything about comedy either.
Right now I’m asking myself, do you even want to write anything else about Robin Williams’ latest embarrassment & John Travolta continuing to prove that Vinnie Barbarino was a fluke?
Not only was this film ridiculously silly, it was weird since they had Travolta’s real life wife, Kelly Preston playing Williams’ love interest.
I did laugh at times during ‘Old Dogs’ but it was only due to my movie going companion’s enjoyment of it. Which I was glad to hear, it was nice to see at least one of us get our $3 worth of entertainment. & I don’t mean to insult my ex-music teacher/Robin Williams fan who accompanied me to the theatre, but the only reason I was laughing was over the fact that she was giggling at the silliness onscreen. Which proves the hit & miss quality of silly comedies – what made “Airplane” so damn funny? It was just one silly line after another; “Monty Python &The Holy Grail” couldn’t have been any sillier, yet I consider it to be a comedy classic, maybe the best ever.
I guess originality plays a major part because ‘Old Dogs’ didn’t have much. “Pineapple Express” comes to mind as a recent awful attempt at comedy because the entire movie seemed to be ‘made up as they went along, at least ‘Old Dogs’ appeared to be scripted, but the script basically weaved its way from one unlikely silly scene to another without much thought of depth. Obviously the golf scene where Robin Williams’ Dan was trying to impress the Japanese CEO was ‘planned’ – Dan, being over 50 needed a dozen or so pills to survive each day & his newly discovered children get them mixed up but don’t tell him so he has no depth perception during the round. It was worthy of a smirk, maybe even a quiet chuckle, but the other 4 people in the audience were laughing out loud... loudly. One man’s silly is another man’s moronic, I guess.
Mork & Barbarino play Dan & Charlie; friends from childhood, they start a sports agency & become successful agents. Just as they’re on the verge of merging with a large Japanese corporation, Vicki (Kelly Preston) appears – she’s a brief fling from Dan’s past that he’s always regretted breaking up with. Vicki gives Dan 2 tidbits of information; One/ She’s going to jail for two weeks (for being a protester, so she’s not a ‘real’ criminal) & Two/ She had twins after their fling & they’re Dan’s kids (Now 7 or 8 years old) The kids come rushing in with cross-eyed friend Rita Wilson & hug Dan, calling him ‘Daddy!’ before he even knows their names.
Rita is on her way to do a hand modeling assignment so they need Dan to watch the kids. & you’ll never guess what happens next . . . Oh, you did. Yes, Dan closes the trunk of his car on Rita’s hands & now she can’t take care of the kids (or do the hand modeling job) & so Dan must take in his children until Vicki gets out of prison.
I had the nerve to think Matt Dillon would provide an actual comedic moment playing an over zealous ‘Campfire Kids’ troop leader, but if anything his scene was a ‘low’ point, sliding from silliness into blatant stupidity.
The ‘He-Seems-To-Get-Less-Funny-Every-Time-I-See-Him’ Seth Green plays an employee of Dan & Charlie’s who is given the job of moving to Japan to aide with the merger. He makes it to Japan but then disappears. Later, when trying to get back into Dan & Charlie’s good graces, he finds himself in the arms of a gorilla singing “All Out Of Love”. This, though seen several times in previews & TV ads, still made the other 4 people in the theatre laugh. I remember thinking it would have been funnier if they had Seth being held captive in the arms of Kirstie Alley & he had to sing “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” to appease her... but I guess that would only appeal to ‘Cheers’ fans.
With the success of ‘The Hangover’, I was hoping set-up comedies would start taking a turn for the better – more originality – more ‘intelligent’ silliness. But if this is the best they can come up with they might as well go back to the drawing board & go with that ‘Welcome Back, Kotter’ idea with Travolta playing the lead role in ‘Welcome Back, Barbarino’.