upon first viewing of this movie , <NEG> the phrases " been there " and " done that " come quickly to mind </NEG> . spy hard <NEG> manages to steal almost every joke </NEG> from the zucker brothers films , the most popular of which are airplane and the naked gun series . stealing stuff can be profitable in this industry , but only when you steal the right stuff . what little plot there is involves dick steele , aka . agent wd-40 ( leslie nielsen ) trying to save the world from an almost deranged madman played by andy griffith . along the way to it goal ( goal ? ) , the film manages to spoof mainly the james bond type films , but also manages to hit on films such as home alone and sister act . the trick about spoofing is that you have to actually be funny , or at the least , satirical . spy hard achieves neither , as <NEG> it borrows all of the wrong elements </NEG> from the superior zucker brothers films . the " dick , the world is in danger . what is it ? well , it's a big roundish ball floating in space around the sun . . ( i'm paraphrasing ) " type of exchange is used at least four times in the opening ten minutes of the film , <NEG> each time getting progressively less funny </NEG> . what they should have stolen were the background sight gags which were so effective in the zucker brother's films while writing their own dialogue . director rick friedberg focuses more on the mug shots of his actors ( especially nielsen , who can do this quite well ) than on the delivery and context of their lines , much of the time <NEG> cutting the punchline short </NEG> . the whole film <NEG> seems to be in a race with itself to be over </NEG> , as is evident in the final sequence , where <NEG> there is no comedic denouement </NEG> after the climax . as was usual in the zucker brothers films and in spy hard , the end credits tend to replace this by being out of context . one of the more amusing was , " captain of the enterprise . . . . . . james t . kirk " . overall , i thought this was <NEG> a very weak effort </NEG> . while all of the right films to spoof were chosen , <NEG> they used none of the right spoofing methods </NEG> . next time they should " spy " a little bit harder . * * * * = excellent . one of a kind . must see . * * * = entertaining . worth the price of admission . * * = fair . nothing much special . * = what were they thinking ? ?
