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Our mouse squeeks at MOD SQUAD
Dudes... Dudettes... There is no giant afro. There is no funky clothes.... Aaaaaargh!!! I've been filing this film in the... Ewwwww, I wish it wasn't being made department for a while now. But here's a mousy friend with his look at it...
Pickebicke again, this time with a view of "Mod Squad". This film is very
uneven, and seems to be very much a "studio product" -- no real soul or
direction present.
It basically reinvents the characters from the TV show -- Claire Danes'
Julie is a softie who is hurt my romance, Giovanni Ribisi's Pete is now a
lovable fuck-up, and Omar Epps' Linc is...well, I can't come up with any
word other than bland. They uncover some sort of police corruption scheme
that you've seen a million times before, and the film knows it because they
keep mentioning other similar films. What a cop-out instead of finding
something original.
What "The Mod Squad" should have been is a trio of very nineties characters
who emulate the stars of the 60s and 70s; maybe Julie is a softie who
desperately wants to emulate Foxy Brown; Linc longs for the days when Blacks
and Whites didn't get along in mainstream movies; Pete wants to be Mannix or
Baretta but all he can do is drive really poorly. Well, that's what it
should have been anyway. Instead, sometimes they say things like "right on",
sometimes the director uses 70's zooms, and at one point they listen to the
soundtrack of "Car Wash", but sometimes it's just a conventional cop flick.
There are definitely flickers of a good film in here; Ribisi in particular
is terribly entertaining. His entrance involves him barking at a painting of
a dog. The pace is good too: sometimes it lingers in a moment that just
happens to be interesting. Unfortunately, that moment has to end, and the
plot lurches back into (non)action.
This could have been something really good, something to appeal to fans of
the show and the kids who just want a fun film with fun stars. Instead it
looks like it will appeal to nobody. Don't hold your breath for the
franchise. (A Mod Squad ride at MGM studios? Ha)
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Forget franchise, MGM needs a hit. This used to be a cool studio producing films like Poltergeist, Red Dawn, Moonstruck, and Rain Man. As for Mod Squad, you're right, this movie did not have a chance as soon as the coffee perked on the first day of filming.
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Anyone lese think it's funny that Giovanni Ribisi has to bark in two of his latest projects? In The Other Sister, he wears a dog costume and barks for Juliette Lewis, and now this report that he barks for The Mod Squad. Did I miss him barking in Saving Private Ryan? Maybe that was after he was shot and coughed up blood....
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I have a question: When there is all this talk of how poorly a studio is doing, does that really mean that they might go out of business? When I hear about MGM's woes or Universal's string of bombs (why oh why did the people make Patch Adams a hit?) does that men that if the trend continues we might actaully see one go under? Im asking because seeing a studio eat it is my wet dream. I would sing the ding-dong/wicked-witch song for days if MGM went chapter 11. It would be like the glorious time of the late sixties when over-budget stupid gaudy-cinematography movies dominated the studios' output (sound familiar? the idiotic musicals of the sixties are the same thing as the idiotic event movies of the ninties). Those musicals started bombing and the studios fell due to hits that they couldnt understand like Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy. Someday, americans will wise up and I think we really will get to dance around the dead body of, say, Universal!
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They just declare Chapter 11, fire some or all of their top executives, and/or get bought out by some mega-conglomerate who thinks of a movie studio as a valid moneymaking property. The corporation now known as "MGM" has nothing whatsoever to do with the studio that made "Singin' in the Rain" -- it's changed hands and been "reorganized" any number of times from the '50s onward, so right now it's little more than a brand name anyway.
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i ate the TV show. i drank the TV show. i drive in my car babbling the theme to the TV show like Raymond in Rain Man (ha! an MGM reference. cool, huh?) judging by the trailers and this review, this looks like it won't be true to the TV show...and that sucks. especially how they have Pete looking like a friggin idiot! that not his personality! the real Pete was a rich kid who didn't want any of that so he kept opening up cans of whup-ass every episode. not even close the the jackass that Giovanni Ribsi is playing onscreen. as far as Clare Danes goes, i hope she kept Julie's tenderness and i'll be content if Omar Epps flies across the table and opens up his whup-ass can all over the place. but, like i always say, people in hell want ice-water...
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The mod Squad?!!! what person on this planet over the age of 12 didn't realize that this was going to be terrible. They need to stop remaking tv shows from the 60's right now. It's just getting worse and worse. Stupid Claire Danes!!!!!
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Fuck! I've been walking around for three weeks trying to remember the name of that show. Me and a bunch of my friends had one of those nights where you drink a case of beer and ask random strangers the name of "the show where they guys had a contest to see who could get the most broken noses". Fuck 'Mod Squad', that should remake "Riptide" (using the original cast of Magnum PI, of course).
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Lane, you should have written a review and given this flick the Cruel Intentions treatment. That was a classic. As for the Mod Squad, it appears that Claire and the gang look kinda cool and that's it. When are hollywood execs going to learn that it helps if you have a good story and direction. Stupid studios. Blah.
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You really suck, you know that? Why don't you admit your life is shit and kill yourself? You're nothing but a longwinded, bag of shit. Kind of like a certain Website operator we know. Die screaming, faggot.
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This pic was a disaster from start to finish...Ribisi played almost the same character he did in "The Other Sister". The music was awful...How could something with such promise turn out so badddd.....hmmm....MGM
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