Uriah43
Having supposedly killed the evil "General Rancor" (Andy Griffith) before he can do any mischief "Agent WD-40" (Leslie Nielsen) retires from the Secret Service to enjoy the remainder of his life to the fullest. However, he is called back by "the Director" (played by Charles Durning) when it is discovered that General Rancor has managed to survive and is now demanding a special computer chip in exchange for the release of an agent named "Barbara Dahl" (Stephanie Romanov) who just happens to be the daughter of the woman that Agent WD-40 (aka "Dick Steele") once loved. To that end, Agent WD-40 has to find the special computer chip before General Rancor can get his hands on it while at the same time attempt to rescue Barbara Dahl in the process. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie had a couple of humorous scenes here and there but like a joke that has been told once too often it lost its appeal after awhile. It just got old too quickly and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Below average.
Bruce Banner
Some movie director's make spoofs on real movies and some just make ripoff's of those spoofs. This is one of the latter.I popped this in because i, like many of the people who watched the Naked gun series (and Airplane and Scary Movies) loved the way the Zucker Abrams director team made incredible comedy with Leslie Nielson.But this movie was directed by entirely different people, who had no qualms about totally ripping off those comic geniuses and what's more egregious- failing to be funny! Just don't waste your time- there are still plenty of great comedies with outrageous Leslie Nielson playing the same exact character that are actually bearable to watch. Unfortunately this is not one of them.
TheLittleSongbird
Written by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer(talentless hacks as far as I am concerned) and directed by Rick Friedberg, even with the major flaws Spy Hard is not a bad movie. I will admit I was expecting it to be a lot worse, you see Friedberg and Seltzer directed Disaster Movie and Epic Movie which are two of the worst movies ever made, Meet the Spartans which fares little better and Date Movie and Vampires Suck while lame was the best of the lot(I have to re watch the Scary Movie flicks). So I was expecting something unwatchable.So I was surprised at how moderately entertaining Spy Hard was. It does have its problems I agree. The story is predictable and rather rushed in the pace not helped by its scant length. The direction is also not the best, sometimes it is efficient but at other times it is patchy. But the worst part of Spy Hard is the juvenile and often unfunny dialogue which shows Friedberg and Seltzer's weaknesses for writing as well as directing.That said, despite the bad dialogue at times, there are some funny sight gags and the references to the spy genre weren't too obvious and fun to spot. The film doesn't look like direct-to-video fodder either, which is a good thing. The editing mayn't be the best, but when it comes to the sets, costumes, gadgetry and some of the photography it is pretty spot on. The soundtrack is reminiscent in style to a James Bond outing such as For Your Eyes Only, and while I am not a fan of that particular score the music was fun to listen to here and I liked its style. The acting compared to any of the films Friedberg and Seltzer directed is pretty good, Leslie Nielson is great when funny and he is rather here with a fun enough character. This performance is far from his best such as Airplane and Naked Gun, but at least he didn't embarrass himself as badly as he did when he did 2001:A Space Travesty. Charles Durning and Nicolette Sheridan are decent too and there are some interesting cameos from Robert Culp and Fabio.Overall, surprisingly watchable compared to the clap-trap I was expecting. 6/10 Bethany Cox
DICK STEEL
If the names Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer don't ring a bell, perhaps their directorial efforts for films such as Vampires Suck, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans, Epic Movie and Date Movie may be more familiar with just how consistently bad they were, following a rote formula of making fun of genre film franchises that somehow wasn't really funny, with more misses than hits with their gags. That formula also states to chalk up a long list of impersonators and to lampoon everything that's pop culture at the moment, and to string a series of bad gags to make up what's essentially some semblance of a story, not.But it wasn't all that bad to begin with. Early in their career they're responsible for writing the Scary Movie franchise, and made their debut with writing Spy Hard, a film that starred the late Leslie Nielsen, and I suppose back then there was enough budget for the filmmakers to hire bona fide stars such as Ray Charles, Hulk Hogan, the male model Fabio, Mr T and even the late Pat Morita of Karate Kid's Mr Miyagi fame, before the flops spell out the hiring of impersonators (no offense to the profession) since I would believe the stars wouldn't want to go touch these productions with a ten foot pole given a regressing track record.I've always associated Leslie Nielsen with his better known Naked Gun series, and while his brand of comedy had gone beyond detective Frank Drebin, somehow Nielsen is quite the enigma, and becomes a character in his own right no matter what role he gets to play. Cue the signature blank stares, the innuendos and the physical slapstick comedy that he's perfected, that you'll know you're in for a hoot no matter how bad the story is. Here his Agent WD-40 aka Dick Steele (OK, so here's the cat out of the bag for friends who wonder why "Dick Steel" was a handle I used - dropping the last "e" in Steele for more "bite" during my online gaming days) is the quintessential spoof-Bond, with mysterious charisma and suave to win over the femme fatales, and gets the job done with questionable, unorthodox methods.Yes, I suppose one of the easiest way to spoof a film or a franchise is to set the sights on James Bond. After all, we have Johnny English and Austin Powers to come after this, so there's plenty of room actually for more of such wannabes who have their equivalent of a theme song, here performed in hilarious fashion and easily one of the best sequences here with a Weird Al Yankovic contribution full of inane lyrics, and keep a close eye on those gyrating silhouettes!Like all "comedic" films by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer to follow this, Spy Hard is the precursor to their idea that comedy stems from poking fun at the box office successes of the time, and in the mid 90s, we get spoofs here from films such as Jan de Bont's Speed, Spielberg's Jurassic Park, Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Cameron's True Lies, Wolfgang Petersen's In the Line of Fire and even Sister Act which allowed for some nuns with guns moments. While it's part of the fun spotting, or rather identify all the blatant spoof attempts, this soon wears out their welcome and like their follow up films, it seems that lessons aren't learnt from spoof fatigue. Simply put the story here dwells on Agent WD-40 stopping his arch nemesis General Rancor (Andy Griffith, or TV's Matlock), but its relentless buffoonery didn't quite survive past the halfway mark where jokes consistently fell flat and were unfunny.Still, the best thing about the film is to watch Leslie Nielsen at his element with yet another Nielsen-isque performance, and for fans around the world, he will definitely be missed as one of the unlikeliest comedians of our generation. Rest in peace, and thank you for the memories.
