Stuart Saves His FamilyStarring: Al Franken, Laura San Giacomo, Vincent D'OnofrioDirected by Harold RamisMovie C+, DVD N/A - There are really no features so I don't like to give a grade for movie only's. I had put off seeing this movie for years, but I recently decided to give it a try. I had thought it was going to be horrible, so I was surprised it wasn't. I was also surprised at how bland it was. I honestly didn't know anything about it so from the title I was thinking Stuart's family would be in some kind of dangerous peril and he would have to rescue them. I guess I was picturing some sort of wacky adventure. This movie, however, is not a wacky adventure, it's acutally a fairly generic comedy. Stuart is not saving his family from some evil mastermind he is saving them from their own disfuntionality. Everyone in his family is unhappy and Stuart wants to better everyone's situation and establish a good relationship with his family members. In my mind Stuart Saves His Family has one fatal flaw and several other not so fatal ones. The fatal one is that there is voice over narration throughout the entire movie. At times a little narration can work, but in this case the narration tells the entire story. It's like the movie has no story of its own, so we get Stuart explaining everything, and truth be told there is not much to explain. All in all I can't say that this movie is good, but I can't say it's bad either. It's pretty harmless. It's not a disgrace and really it works whether you are a fan of SNL or not. I think someone who is not already familiar with the character from the sketches would have no trouble watching this. Fans of the character may get a kick seeing an expanded version of Stuart, but since this didn't exactly do gangbusters at the box office (even by SNL movie standards), fans may not have cared. Review by Sherry |
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