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The Stupids
Threat advisory: Low - Low risk of entertaining activities
Movie propaganda
Putting the "dumb" back into stupid.
Meet the Stupids. Stanley (Tom Arnold), Joan (Jessica Lundy) and their kids, Buster and Petunia. They're a nice typical suburban American family. Except for one thing. None of them has the sense God gave a lemon.
Stanley wakes up one morning to find his rubbish has been stolen from outside his house for the third week running. He follows the thieves in their rubbish truck and concludes that he has uncovered a conspiracy to deprive the nation of its rubbish. Meanwhile, the kids find a Chinese menu thrust under their door and assume its a clue to their father's whereabouts. Joan then comes to the conclusion that the kids have been kidnapped by the police.
Intelligence analyst
Special Agent Matti
Theatrical report
Wometimes being a critic is a joy, being able to watch brilliantly incisive and entertaining films for free. Other times I have to watch things like The Stupids.
First, let me assassinate the American sense of humour. Don't get me wrong, they do have one, only no-one other than Americans (and not all of them) think it's funny. It is infantile, pathetic, a fetid, suppurating sore on the soul of humanity. The greatest heights it has ever and will ever reach are expressed in such literary gems as Mad and Cracked magazines, televisual gems such as Gilligan's island, and filmic wonders like King Ralph. American humour is to funny as nappies are to Versace.
Now, The Stupids are as stupid does. The creators of this film (who scored somewhat lower than Forrest Gump on their IQ tests) have performed great feats of research and found the lowest common denominator in American humour. Then gone below it. Starting with an impossible premise, adding impossible scenarios, impossibly stupid characters, 4000 dumb gags and 5000 clichés, there is no plot, no pacing, no style. Of course there is absolutely no irony either as all American children are subjected to an irony bypass by the age of seven. How else can you explain televangelism, McDonald's, funniest home videos, Kansas and every president since Kennedy went for a drive past the grassy knoll?
There was one gag that was well set up, but only because it was so blatantly and torturously done - it was a pun, and they are supposed to be torturous. That was why I gave this film such high a score.
Don't bother to see this film, even for curiosity's sake. It is significantly less entertaining than wet concrete; even my flatmate - who is an accountant - turned his nose up at this one.
Security censorship classification
PG (Low level violence)
Surveillance time
94 minutes (1:34 hours)
Not for public release in Australia before date
VHS rental: 10 September 1997
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