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


        Ŀ
           THE FLINTSTONES:  Brian Levant, director.  Tom S.       
           Porter & Jim Jennewen and Steven E. de Souza,           
           screenplay.  Starring John Goodman, Rick Moranis,       
           Elizabeth Perkins, Rosie O'Donnell, Kyle Maclachlan,    
           Halle Berry, Jonathan Winters, the BC-52s, and          
           Elizabeth Taylor.  Universal.  Rated PG.                
        

          Talk about your movies with a built-in audience.  If you
     thought THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES (which didn't) or THE ADDAMS
     FAMILY (which did) would pack in the baby boomers, then wait
     until you see the lines for THE FLINTSTONES.  At least, for the
     first two weekends, that is, because this movie doesn't have the
     staying power to create repeat business, nor is it entertaining
     enough to generate good word of mouth.  The curious will make it
     the top box-office draw the first couple weeks (even up against
     Eddie Murphy's latest installment of the BEVERLY HILLS COP
     franchise -- but that's more a sign of Murphy's flagging popular-
     ity than anything else), eager to see how their favorite toon
     fares as a live-action feature.  (Did they get the voices right?
     Is Dino believable?  Are the sets hokey?)  Beyond that, don't
     expect boffo box office.

          To give the project its due, the production design and the
     animatronic and computer animated dinosaurs are superb.  The
     filmmakers have captured the Bedrock look perfectly, but aside
     from a prehistoric ATM and the occasional hot tub, it's still a
     community of the 1960s.  Stone age analogues of personal compu-
     ters, VCRs, and pocket cameras would have helped to update THE
     FLINTSTONES nicely.  Believe me, this movie sorely needs some
     updating.  Originally developed as an imitation of THE HONEY-
     MOONERS, the animated FLINTSTONES series moved Jackie Gleason's
     working-class premise to suburbia, and remade the Stone Age to
     resemble the early 1960s.  Reportedly, 32 scriptwriters helped to
     create the movie's storyline, which immediately brings to mind
     the joke about the camel being a horse created by committee.

          Winnowing the original 32 down to 8 writers (only three
     credited on screen) didn't improve matters, based on the material
     that made it into the movie.  ("Welcome to Bedrock, First With
     Fire" a city limits sign says; the Flintstones eat at RocDonald's
     and shop at Marshy Fields.)  In a plot device straight out of the
     cartoon, Fred (John Goodman) is promoted out of the rock quarry
     and put into the front office, all a part of a sinister plot by
     Cliff Vandercave (Kyle Maclachlan) and his secretary Sharon Stone
     (Halle Berry) to embezzle money from the Slate Gravel Company.
     (Don't groan at me, I didn't name Berry's character.)  Fred and
     Wilma's (Elizabeth Perkins, who looks absolutely gorgeous with
     her hair down later in the movie -- almost the spitting image of
     the Ann-Margrock character from the toon) new-found wealth
     drives a wedge between them and the Rubbles (Rick Moranis and
     Rosie O'Donnell), which is only aggravated by Fred's first action
     as Vice President of Industrial Procurement:  firing Barney.
     (He's manipulated into it, of course.)  During the course of the
     movie, Cliff blindly leads Fred into more and more trouble, as
     the scriptwriters and Brian Levant's lackluster direction lead
     the movie into deeper and deeper quicksand.

          The little details are the most fun, however.  Even though
     they're lifted from the toon, the animals that serve as various
     utensils (the garbage disposal, the record player, and a funny
     hand dryer at the bowling alley) are welcome comedy relief from
     Goodman's Gleason-like tics and from the surprisingly grim
     proceedings.  Fred and Barney are nearly lynched in one scene,
     and Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm are placed in mortal peril.  Even the
     celebrity casting (Elizabeth Taylor, Jonathan Winters, the
     "BC"-52s) doesn't spice things up much.

          To put it simply:  Yabba-dabba-don't.

     RATING:  $

