Master of Disguise -- 2002 -- PG

Hm. It is after films like this that one can't help but wonder why, and even how, something like this got made. It had some elements of humor, and I'll admit that I even laughed once or twice, but on the whole, this movie had very little to offer. I rolled my eyes much more than I laughed or even chuckled.

The backbone of this storyline hinges on the magical diguising abilities of the Disguisey family, which is supposed to be Italien. The main character's name is Pistachio...as in the nut. This ability allows them to disguise themselves as any person in the world using their skills. This means they can also change size and shape to accomodate whatever they're changing into, but strangely, this ability also relies on their ability to make a cool mask to peel off at an opportune time.

An example that won't spoil here: Pistachio disguises himself as a cherry pie. He fit on a dessert cart in the pie pan. When he emerged, he had a full cherry body suit, as if he had fit himself in his entirety in that pan. Odd, but if that's how it works...ok. Clever. They can also change disguises in an instant. Same deal, even though the logistics don't really pan out again...ok.

Where the real break down occurred was the humor. The plot itself was very, very thin. Guy wants to steal national treasures and sell them on the black market using the girl of the story as a hostess on his black market "QVC-ish" network program. We also have the plot of Pistachio coming into the family disguise business. Each of these don't offer much in the way of sustainment for a 90 minute film, but they try. Since it's a comedy, a lot of room was left for the humor element, but unfortunately, most of the clever humor was foregone for crude and toilet humor.

Yes, I did laugh when the villain laughed heartily and then abruptly stopped when he farted. But the training sequence where he was told to slap the robot and use the phrase "who's your daddy?" to intimidate the opponent didn't work for me at all.

There was some attempt at making the humor in the costume characters, but most of the time, there wasn't much to invest in, so the humor fell very flat and even got old very quickly (such as in the case of Mr. Peru). There was an extended Mr. Peru scene on the DVD that was flat boring, since it was just Dana Carvey bouncing around.

In the end, Dana Carvey's humoristic talents were wasted in this film. He tried, but the story and the humor just weren't there to work with. It boiled down to a cheap attempt at something that probably didn't have a prayer to begin with.