So what else was in that Tom Hanks multipack? Oh I guess you know if you read the title.
Not a lot to say about The Burbs. I just couldn’t get into it. It is very Joe Dante, not very Tom Hanks. Lots of genres and styles meshing together into a big meh for me.
Dragnet, I have more to say about. It’s even worse.
As a 90’s kid, I grew up watching A LOT of Nick at Nite. I daresay I may have even preferred Nick at Nite to Nick at Day (erm, Nickelodeon). Dragnet was among the many many shows I watched. I wouldn’t say it was a favorite (the serious tone was a lil tough for a lil one to handle) but I still enjoyed it. Or at least I did until the Blue Boy episode freaked me out, and I stopped watching for a while. Blue Boy hiatus aside, I know this show very well and it holds a special nostalgia for me.
This movie is not that Dragnet. I mean it is. It’s the same world, including Harry Morgan reprising his role as now Captain Gannon. Jack Webb had already passed on, but the mantle of Friday was given to his nephew played by Dan Aykroyd. New Friday had similar mannerisms to old Friday and we had a lot of the same narrative style as the series. Good so far right? Oh and did I mention that this movie is a comedy? Yeah. The series that I just earlier in this post said that had been a bit serious for my childhood tastes was now a comedic movie. That should be an improvement, yeah? No.
It just doesn’t work as a comedy, at least not for me. Friday’s matter of factness is now treated as a joke. The tone is all over the place with ultra serious narration over ultra wacky circumstances. Some of the scenes are just ridiculous. I don’t know who thought this was a good idea to genre flip this, but it wasn’t a good one. I think it leaned in too hard on the funny side (or what it thinks is funny). Not even Tom Hanks can save this one.