Mr. Magoo

If you really hate your kids, pack them off to this slapdash farce, whose only funny moment is the PC disclaimer at the end about the Disney company’s humanist concern for blind people (which even literate toddlers will have trouble understanding anyway). Leslie Nielsen seems a good two feet too tall for the unlamented UPA cartoon character of the 50s (who had a barely seen cartoon feature of his own back in 1964), but the real problems go beyond that. Director Stanley Tong (Supercop, Rumble in the Bronx, Jackie Chan’s First Strike) gets to recapture his Hong Kong action routines only in the abbreviated kickboxing assigned to Kelly Lynch or her stunt double; everything else is torturous formula. Written by Pat Proft and Tom Sherohman; with Malcolm McDowell, Ernie Hudson, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Miguel Ferrer (looking and sounding a great deal like his father Jose). (JR) Read more