when walt disney pictures announced a live-action feature based on the '60s cartoon series of " mr . magoo , " special interests groups representing the vision-impaired let out a cry of dismay . mr . magoo , they claimed , would be an insult to the men and women they represented . in fact , they were wrong . mr . magoo is not just an insult to the blind and near-blind , it's an insult to every human being who has the misfortune to suffer through this dreadfully unfunny , 90 minute atrocity . it's stating the obvious to remark that disney appears to have run out of original ideas . look at their roster of 1996 and 1997 releases , and you'll see a shocking list of retreads , including 101 dalmatians , george of the jungle , jungle2jungle , that darn cat ! , flubber , and now mr . magoo . the best of these ( george of the jungle ) was mildly entertaining . the worst , mr . magoo , exposes just how painful a bad movie experience can be . the first problem with mr . magoo is the script . despite the collaboration of naked gun scribe pat proft , mr . magoo is comically barren . from beginning to end , there's not a laugh to be found . every attempt at humor -- and there are lots of them -- falls flat with an audible thud . you'd think that out of the dozens of gags jammed into this film , at least a few would work , but that's not the case . i've had more laughs during ingmar bergman pictures . then there's leslie nielsen , who looks , sounds , and acts absolutely nothing like the animated character ( memorably voiced by jim backus ) . in the past , nielsen has proven his comic aptitude with roles in movies like airplane and the naked gun . lately , however , he has been getting lazy , taking parts in the likes of dracula : dead and loving it , spy hard , and mr . magoo . even if nielsen was in top form , it would take an incredible stretch of imagination to see him as magoo ( especially since we're reminded of the original by the short cartoon segments that open and close the film ) , but " top form " is not a phrase i would use to describe his performance here . this is strictly a take-the-money-and- run operation . the story , which , like many disney stories , can be described in one long sentence : magoo is the only witness to the theft of a rare jewel from a museum , and , as he is trying to apprehend the thieves on his own , the police mistake him for the robber . the cops are played by ernie hudson and stephen tobolowsky , who take their lumps early and often . the bad guys are kelly lynch ( who does a lot of martial arts-type kicking ) , nick chinlund , and malcolm mcdowell ( who has the good sense to look embarrassed ) . matt keeslar portrays one of magoo's sidekicks -- his nephew , waldo . the bumbling man's other , more interesting companion is a dog named angus . most of mr . magoo's humor comes in the form of failed slapstick . the cartoon violence level in this film doesn't approach that of home alone 3 or flubber , but it's still pretty acute , with characters getting hit on the head with sledgehammers and knocked off snowy precipices . there's a non-violent bit with magoo preparing a chicken dinner that could have been funny if it was handled better , but , compared to mr . bean's recent , similar misadventure , it doesn't hold up well . then there is the series of lame jokes that result from magoo's near blindness , such as the occasion when he mistakes a wild animal for a baby . i'm willing to cut director stanley tong a little slack . tong , a hong kong film maker trying to break into the hollywood market , has helmed several jackie chan movies , including first strike , rumble in the bronx , and supercop . his chief talent , that of choreographing martial arts fights , is wasted here ( despite some high kicking by kelly lynch ) . like john woo ( hard target ) and ringo lam ( maximum risk ) before him , it appears that tong has been consigned to the purgatory of making a bad movie as his entry into the american mainstream . it is worth noting that , unlike many disney films which hold a perverse appeal for the under-10 crowd while driving parents to distraction , mr . magoo appears to bore viewers of all ages . the screening i attended was wall-to-wall kids , and , for the most part , they didn't seem to be enjoying themselves . when the film was over , i asked one little girl what she thought of it . her pained expression confirmed the adage that a picture can indeed be worth a thousand words . mr . magoo is the kind of movie that should be rejected by any potential viewer , sight unseen .
