Dudley Do-Right

Bomb Rating: 

I figured I could endure. I figured wrong.

I have a head injury because of this film.

Basically, I had been up since 5 a.m. and had enjoyed a full day of vigorous physical activity, work and errands. I finally got around to hitting the movie theater for the last show at about 10 p.m. I had planned to see "The Astronaut's Wife," but at a running time of two hours and starting at 10:30 p.m., I figured I wasn't likely to make it. "Dudley Do-Right," on the other hand, was just starting, was a measly 90 minutes including the opening Joe Camel cartoon, and would likely require the attention of but a miniscule part of my brain. I figured I could endure. I figured wrong.

About 20 minutes into the film, my brain started feeling like a ball of lead and I began to resemble one of those bobbing-head dolls. Before I knew it, my forehead was thwacking the edge of the seat in front of me at regular intervals. What was amazing is that it occurred pretty much in time to Brendan Fraser's head slamming into loose floor plank after loose floor plank at 120 decibels.

In those rare moments when Brendan wasn't getting cracked on the melon by a two-by-four, smacked in the ass by a hockey puck, or struck in the crotch by a moose, the sound of my head thumping the seat in front of me was all that echoed off the walls of the otherwise empty theater. It was an eerie sensation.

Fraser plays the title character, based on the cartoon of the same name. Sarah Jessica Parker plays his love interest, Nell Fenwick. Alfred Molina plays his nemesis, Snidley Whiplash. Snidley tries to take over the town by creating a gold rush while convincing Dudley that there are vampires in the woods. That's about all I remember, though I swear I watched the whole thing. I think that's it. You can see why I was so enraptured by the siren song of slumber.

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