In the wake of the record setting campaign to give Veronica
Mars a movie as well as the heavily rumored Arrested Development movie coming
to fruition, I decided to make a list of my personal Top 10 movie adaptations
of television shows. I had to sift through a lot of crap (can you believe the
90’s saw film adaptations of The Little Rascals, Leave It to Beaver AND Dennis
the Menace? Thank God for Hollywood
discovering comic books!) but I have come up with a list sure to alienate and
infuriate. So without further ado…
Questionable Mention: Jackass: The Movie – Jackass is
a huge guilty pleasure of mine. However, I’m not sure I can include this movie
(or the sequels) because it’s not really a scripted show or movie.
10. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie – This movie is
on the list because I love MST3K and this movie is basically the same as the TV
show but with a slightly bigger budget and a slightly more recognizable movie
(This Island Earth). If you liked the show, you’ll like the movie. Its as
simple as that.
9. Starsky & Hutch – I was prepared to hate this movie,
but not because of some attachment to the iconic 70’s buddy cop detective show.
It just seemed like another dumb adaptation of the TV show but this time starring the “Frat
Pack” members Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, and Vince Vaughn. To be fair, I tend to like their movies, but most of those are original. I had my reservations on an adaptation. However, I actually liked
it. I mean, it isn’t cinematic brilliance, but it made me laugh repeatedly. In
fact, it features one of my all-time favorite Will Ferrell moments with him in
the prison. Also, Snoop Dogg was a great choice to play Huggy Bear. The movie
was surprisingly funny.
8. The Untouchables – Not my favorite Brian DePalma gangster
flick (“Say hello to my…” yeah, you get it), but not bad. Robert DeNiro’s
portrayal of Al Capone became pretty legendary in this film, despite him really
not being in the movie long. I figure it was the baseball bat scene that
cemented it. Kevin Costner gave his usual monotonic performance, which as
Elliot Ness actually worked. A young Andy Garcia was a real stand-out and Sean
Connery proved to the world that a Scottish accent can pass for Irish (he already proved it with Spanish and 3
years later proved it with Russian!).
7. The Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy – Some didn’t like this
movie, mainly due to expectations of certain characters appearing or it being
exactly like the sketch comedy show, but I loved it. It had good characters, a
good plot and was really funny. Plus, the movie features a young Brendan Fraser
and an appearance by Paul Bellini! (Those who have never seen Kids in the Hall
will have no idea why that last guy was worth mentioning.)
6. The Addams Family – The good news… this movie was really
funny, like a lot better than it should have been. The bad news… I blame this
movie for launching a slew of crappy TV sitcom adaptation movies like Adam 12, My Favorite Martian... thank God Bobcat Goldthwait killed any chances of a Mr. Ed movie with Hot To Trot. Anyways,
Addams Family had a lot of good going for it. A brilliant cast, good sets and a
script that incorporated silly humor from the show as well as the sarcastic
irreverent humor necessary to make the movie work in our world. The sequel
was… okay. It was really just a lot of the same, even having a plot centering
on Uncle Fester being an outsider to the family again. There was at least one
more direct to video sequel with a different cast but all copies of those films
should be burned. Just focus on the first movie.
5. Dragnet – Dragnet really paved the way for the
aforementioned Starsky & Hutch adaptation, but this one was better. For one
thing, the original Dragnet was a straight as an arrow police program with
almost no comedic relief and main characters who talked in the same serious
tone every minute of every episode. The adaptation, to my knowledge, was
something that had never been done before… to make a parody film of a serious
show. Dragnet was hilarious, featuring a Dan Ackroyd and Tom Hanks (back when
both were still funny) and having one of the weirdest villainous schemes I have
ever seen.
4. Serenity – I wanted to like Firefly, but found that too
often it just lagged and dragged. Serenity was the kick ass "fight the power" science fiction work that I
wanted to see all along. It featured a great plot, awesome action sequences and
stand-out special effects. Unfortunately, it flopped. At least it provided some
closure to the story.
3. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! – This was
one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Unlike many movies with the style
of screwy comedy and sight gags that The Naked Gun uses, this movie is still
very re-watchable. Plus, it featured Ricardo Montabalm as the bad guy! How can
you go wrong? Okay, O.J. Simpson is one of the good guys… but at the time he
was still beloved! Plus, he gets hit by a bus, so there you go. But seriously,
Leslie Neilsen’s comedic timing was genius. I miss him.
2. Star Trek (the entire movie franchise) – Some may not
like that I gave the almighty Trek franchise the silver medal, but my reasoning
is sound. For every good movie, there were 2 bad ones. Honestly, the best Next
Generation film was First Contact and it wasn’t really that good. But I
definitely give Star Trek 2nd place on this list for Wrath of Khan
alone. Maybe the Abrams films will even out the balance, but my guess is that
good ol’ J.J. will soon hand off the franchise to someone else so he can do
Star Wars.
1. The Fugitive – This movie was pretty much perfection. I never
saw the series, but I can tell the scriptwriters really got it. Harrison Ford gave
one of his best performances and Tommy Lee Jones made a name for himself. The
suspense is non-stop and the action was intense. The Fugitive felt like if you
took an entire storyline of a 1940’s serial and condensed it into one seamless
feature length film. To me, this film really went above and beyond the ordinary
TV show turned movie adaptation. I think it is easily on par with the Alfred Hitchcock
masterpiece action-thriller North by Northwest… which is high praise from a
Hitchcock fan such as myself.
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