I grew up watching the old Inspector Gadget cartoon as a kid. It was like Get Smart for kids. Bumbling boob can't solve any case and all the work is done by the walking talking dog Brain and his niece Penny. I had heard the live action movie was decent so I checked it out at the library. I rented this movie for free and felt I should have been paid to see this.
Broderick comes nowhere near the caliber of acting Don Adams had as the voice of gadget. His voice was all wrong. The girl who played Penny looked nothing like the cartoon Penny. She is brunette where the cartoon version was blonde with pigtails. But she does do a decent job given what she had to work with. Dabney Coleman gives a good performance as Cheif Quimby. Saldy he never hid in any odd place or had exploding messages tossed at him accidently by Gadget.
The gadget mobile was wrong. It never talked in the series and it did fine. Why did they do this?
Gadget was too intelligent in this film. In the show he was a complete idiot. Here he had a halfway decent intellect. It would have worked better if he was a moron.
Also the completely butchered the catchphrase. Borderick says "Wowser". It is and should always be "Wowsers". It sounds lame with out the 's'. I got upset when they showed the previews and they didn't have the correct phrase.
The ONLY decent gags were during the credits. The lacky for Claw is in front of a support group for recovering henchmen/sidekicks. Seated in the audience is Mr. T, Richard Keil aka Jaws of Bond movie fame, a Herve Villacheze look alike, Oddjob, Kato and more. This is about the only part I laughed at.
The other is at the end where Penny is checking out here gadget watch and tells brain to say somethin. Don Adams voices the dog saying that "Brain isn't in right now. Please leave your name at the sound of the woof. Woof." of course this isn't laugh out loud funny, just a nice piece of nostalgia to hear Adams in the movie. He should have at least voiced the stupid car.
Kids will like this, anyone over 13 won't.
