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)
-100% Pure Mouse
