By Geno McGahee
When I was a child, I loved INSPECTOR GADGET and, in 1999, when I saw the trailer for the live action Disney adaptation, I was less than enthusiastic. Back then, I didn’t give Matthew Broderick his props. He was one of those guys that I just didn’t like his face, but I was wrong. Broderick has some good moments. I’m not in love with his face now but I don’t hate it anymore.
So, it’s been over 20 years and I have decided to finally sit down and watch INSPECTOR GADGET and I was pretty certain that it would be terrible and it wasn’t. It had its share of issues, certainly, but they had some decent humor in this and Broderick really tried to make this film work.
John (Broderick) sincerely wants to be a police officer, but he’s been settling for security guard and is embarrassed about it. His niece, Penny (Michelle Trachtenberg), loves him and doesn’t care that he’s just a toy cop. She wants the best for him. His job is at a lab where a scientist, Brenda (Joely Fisher), works with her dad. John is smitten with her and is trying to make his move but he’s very awkward.
Sanford Scolex (Rupert Everett) is the evil Dr. Claw and there was a lot of hate for this character. In the cartoon, Claw never showed his face, but here, you seem him very early on, but I think you had to and the performance by Everett is well worth seeing his face. He brings the best overacting I’ve seen in some time and he does bring a few laughs in this one.
Brenda’s father is killed and the technology is stolen by Claw and his goons and John tries to stop them and save the day. They end up getting the better of him and nearly killing him, leading to the decision to save him with some hardware and software designed by Brenda and her dad. They make him Inspector Gadget, a Robocop basically.
Claw works with Kramer (Andy Dick), another scientist that is helping him develop his versions of the cyborgs. I know Andy Dick gets a ton of shit for doing stupid things and some unlawful things, but he’s a hilarious actor. In every film I’ve seen him in, he’s made me laugh and this one is no exception. Now, I’m not excusing him grabbing the junk of that dude at the bar, the drug usage and everything else he’s been accused of, but as an actor, he’s good.
Gadget starts cleaning up the city and it doesn’t go over too well with Chief Quinby (Dabney Coleman). He wants to keep the force 100% human and doesn’t want any Broderick-looking Robocop on his team. What I found notable here is that Broderick and Coleman had worked together before. They were in WAR GAMES. Coleman is always good. I wish he got more lead work.
One of the highlights of this film is the Inspector Gadget evil double, also played by Broderick. The only difference is that he’s got huge choppers and destroys everything for fun. The tone of this film was silly and everyone overacted and I welcome that.
Just as I was really enjoying this film, they introduce the fucking Gadget Mobile, voiced by D.L. Hughley. The animation sucks and it is really annoying. I guess they made it for the kids but they had a good thing going until they introduced this shitty unfunny character. Haters of this film can focus on Claw showing his face, the bad CGI, the stupid continued breaking of the fourth wall, but they are all small potatoes compared to that fucking car.
The film pits Gadget vs. Gadget and a rooftop showdown between Gadget and Claw that was pretty good. I realized with about 15 minutes late that I didn’t hate this film. I went into this one thinking that I would be miserable watching it and that I might not even make it through it, but it had its moments and Broderick wasn’t total shit in it. I also must note that he was good in GODZILLA and that movie rules, even though I didn’t think so in 1998.
Looking at Broderick’s run at the time, he actually made some decent films, including ADDICTED TO LOVE, GODZILLA and ELECTION. I will say that INSPECTOR GADGET, despite the Disney handcuffs the film had for humor, the terrible terrible CGI and the Gadget Mobile, is a decent film with some laughs and pretty good pacing and action sequences.
I remarkably recommend INSPECTOR GADGET. Despite it being a money-grab by Disney, the people involved seemed to take it seriously and try their best to make it work.
