Lights Out
Copyright (c) 1994, Bruce Diamond
All rights reserved


        Ŀ        
         THE LITTLE RASCALS:  Penelope Spheeris, director.  Paul   
         Guay & Stephen Mazur & Penelope Spheeris, screenplay.     
         Starring Bug Hall, Brittany Ashton Holmes, Travis Ted-    
         ford, Kevin Jamal Woods, Jordan Warkol, Zachary Mabry,    
         Ross Elliot Bagley, Courtland Mead, and Sam Saletta.      
         With cameos by Mel Brooks, Darryl Hannah, Reba McEntire,  
         the Olsen twins, Lea Thompson, Donald Trump, George       
         Wendt, Raven-Simone and Whoopi Goldberg as Buckwheat's    
         Mom.  Universal.  Rated PG.                               
        

          Lo, I have been to the wasteland, my friends, and I have
     seen the devil's work.  Harken to me now as I tell you a tale an'
     will chill your blains and set your knees to knockin'.

          There were matinees abroad in the land in those days, a
     temptation to adult and child, an idol to the heathen god of
     entertainment.  And Hollywood created the serial and the short
     subject, and the audience looked upon them, and they were good.
     At the very least, they were entertaining.  At the very, very
     least, they killed time before the feature attraction.  And the
     short subject begat cartoons, and cartoons begat cliffhangers,
     and cliffhangers begat action serials, and action serials begat
     children's serials, and children's serials begat "Our Gang," and
     "Our Gang" begat Alfalfa, Spanky, Darla, Stymie, Porky, and
     Buckwheat.  And the children looked upon them, and they were
     otay!

          And movies begat radio (kinda sorta), and radio begat
     television (sorta kinda), and television became the devourer of
     material and the babysitter of children.  "Our Gang" became "The
     Little Rascals," and lo, the message was brought unto a new
     generation, and the message was otay!

          And successful television series begat motion picture
     remakes.  STAR TREK begat STAR TREK:  THE MOTION PICTURE.  And
     STAR TREK:  THE MOTION PICTURE begat THE ADDAMS FAMILY.  And THE
     ADDAMS FAMILY begat THE FUGITIVE and THE FUGITIVE begat THE
     BEVERLY HILLBILLIES and THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES begat THE FLINT-
     STONES and THE FLINTSTONES begat THE LITTLE RASCALS.  And the
     cycle was complete, and the audience looked upon it, and it was
     not otay.  In fact, it stunk to high heaven.

          THE LITTLE RASCALS has to be the worst-directed movie I've
     seen this year, and in a summer that includes NORTH and COLOR OF
     NIGHT, that's saying something.  I've long suspected that
     director Penelope Spheeris wasn't an actor's director, and this
     picture proves it.  Mugging kids, misdirected gazes, an
     inconsistent mix of over-reacting and non-reaction . . . the
     children are constantly distracted, unable to focus on who
     they're talking to or what they're supposed to be working on.
     Spheeris works better with experienced actors (i.e., Mike Myers
     and Dana Carvey in WAYNE'S WORLD, 1992), but even then she can't
     rein in the mugging and broad acting styles.  Something seems to
     happen to Spheeris once she sits in the director's chair; she
     loses all sense of control and proportion.  In the current
     project, she indulges her entire "kids is cute" repertoire,
     employing extreme close ups until Darla's darling pudgy face
     fills the screen or Alfalfa's endearing cowlick hits the top of
     the frame.  Had any of these kids the comic timing or double-take
     ability of the original cast, they'd manage to redeem the use of
     Spheeris' lingering and intrusive camera.  The camera isn't an
     observer of the Rascals' adventures -- it's an unwilling and
     unwitting partner in their nefarious activities.

          Labeling THE LITTLE RASCALS sexist or racist is silly --
     little boys and little girls frequently don't like each other,
     and this time both Stymie and Buckwheat are more positive role
     models than the originals.  No, THE LITTLE RASCALS' primary
     problem isn't PC-related.  It's the other aspects of the movie
     serials that Spheeris slavishly sticks to that sinks the story-
     line and the picture's entertainment value.  She repeatedly uses
     rapid motion to convey comedy, whether it's Keystone Kops-like
     chases or group scenes like building a new race car.  This visual
     gag is old hat and doesn't pull laughs from today's audiences (at
     least not from the audience in the screening I attended).  The
     He-Man Womun Haters Club, Alfalfa's romance with Darla (actually
     one of the sweeter aspects of this movie), Alfalfa's singing and
     his incident with soap bubbles are all things we've seen before,
     and don't bear repeating.  And the costuming, gadzooks!  THE
     LITTLE RASCALS is set in today's Los Angeles, but the kids dress
     as though they stepped right out of the '40s.  They own no modern
     toys (aside from the race car, and even it seems dated), they
     don't reference today's pop culture (comics, movies, TV), and
     they don't interact with modern technology in any way.  It's as
     though the children live in their own world, a time warp bubble
     set in the California hills.  What at first seems cute becomes
     weirder and more divorced from reality as the movie progresses.

          Spheeris also displays a shocking lack of continuity.  She
     had her hands full concentrating on the childrens' performances,
     as the end-of-movie outtakes show (and even then she botched her
     job), but surely she had a responsible continuity person who made
     sure that scenes matched from take to take.  These gaffes are
     incredibly easy to spot and don't take a special eye at all.  It
     becomes something of a game with some movies to see how many
     mistakes you can spot.  With THE LITTLE RASCALS, you'll find so
     many bloopers (moving scenery before kids arrive to move it,
     reappearing items after the prop has been removed from a scene,
     the race car being rebuilt in a cockeyed order, and a spilled
     pickle jar that apparently had no effect on Porky and Buckwheat)
     that it's no fun looking for them after the first twenty minutes.

          THE LITTLE RASCALS is a poor excuse for a movie, and should
     have been shelved or released straight to video to save the
     embarrassment of the big screen.  How Spheeris managed to snag so
     many recognizable stars for cameos escapes me, especially
     considering her movie track record, her most recent stinker being
     THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES (1993).

     RATING:  0
