the early 2000s you gotta love them right sure the internet may be mostly nostalgic of the good old 90s but my childhood was in those early millennium days i wasn't brought up on the likes of ren and stimpy or rocco's modern life or doug no those kind of 2d animations were starting to get out of fashion at least in the movie industry's eyes anyway cartoons are great sure but you know what really elevates a kid's attention 3d cgi now that's where we should be putting our money and so much of my childhood entertainment was dictated by this early 2000s obsession with redeveloping old cartoons and books into fully realized live-action movies last month we covered the iconic disaster piece that is the cat in the hat and today we're following up with beloved 80s cartoon inspector gadget nobody asked for this but boy did we get something the inspector gadget film aptly named inspector gadget is a 1999 science fiction action comedy film based loosely of the 1983 cartoon of the iconic character though to say it's loosely based off of it is quite an understatement this film decides to really nail in with the cartoony logic of the world of inspector gadget and actually seeing it in live action can only really be described as uncomfortable at least and incredibly stupid at worst but despite its presentation it supposedly was an actual moderate box office success surmounting 134.4 million dollars off of a 90 million dollar budget and i can kind of understand that i don't remember ever asking for this film but i sure did see it everywhere at everyone's house once it started popping up and though it may have been popular it certainly wasn't hailed as such a great film critically so since this is so heavily lenient on visual effects and cartoony physics and gags let's lean into this spectacle ourselves and go through just about everything it has to throw at us because the world of inspector gadget is actually pretty fun i mean it really plays off of that childish imagination of weird tools and gadgets all smashed together into one place that you think would be a great bit of fun and creativity i mean just look at these opening credits it has a very distinctive style and sense of humor that certainly seems like it would have a boatload of content that can be expanded upon further right so the film opens up with our protagonist john brown as a police officer minding his own dutiful business the people around him are actively praising him for his existence apparently so you can already tell it's not quite reality and in bombastic goofy fashion a local school bus has gone completely out of control everyone is panicking including the driver himself and somehow amidst the emergency some kids have managed to build a sign to hang out the window okay then with supposedly no other policeman around it's up to officer brown to somehow clear this devastation and he does so by sprinting to an on-route crossing kicking a dog up into the air cramming the children crossing and rushing ahead to avoid the bus okay sure the bus is safe too but just look at all those cuts that's some cartoony directing and then brown ends up catching that dog again and being praised by all of the city and as weird as it may all seem it turns out it was all just a dream just one big cartoony dream but hey it wraps up the character quite nicely in reality john brown is just a security guard and he's been rejected from being a real cop there's a whole bit of exposition explaining all of this but it's all just kind of meh dialogue i don't know if they're just aiming for young children here or just don't know how to write good dialogue but boy is it noticeable meanwhile in a laboratory somewhere artemis and his daughter brenda are working on a foot trying to animate it with thought alone and they succeed realizing it's powered by the will of the heart not the thought in the brain turns out this lab is right by where brown is security guarding and his infatuation with brenda is something he just can't keep to himself saying it out loud in front of his colleague for some reason again is this for four-year-olds or does he just have absolutely no awareness regardless with brenda leaving brown uses the opportunity to try to talk to her but his soft awkward personality just makes it uncomfortable for everyone involved we've all been there and it creates the perfect opening for our mysterious body of the film to charge into the lab and steal the foot for himself with some rc robots did they just kill the dad i mean yeah that's about as censored as it gets i guess i didn't even piece that together as a baby kid damn oh someone's gonna play the old lady i actually like that one the dubbing's really off though so yes with the dad dead and foot kidnapped the baddies make their escape i assume this is how foot fetishists feel after a successful night also hey that mysterious mastermind no longer is a mystery that was a quick reveal and with our boy brown wanting to help people he recklessly chases him down by car being clearly outplayed at every single move and after an interesting product placement he gets completely demolished with a dynamite stick but up before the baddie has to sacrifice something too basically this film is the backstory of robocop so far how original and hey you should subscribe only you can help against my unbalanced sub ratio so brown is covered head to toe in cast and now suddenly that girl brenda is totally invested in him with her father dead and brown being the only one to try to save him though he didn't really he was just chasing a bat whatever she decides he is to be the subject of her big science project they were working on together also like there's this mayor character who just blasts her way in with the clearly fake persona just trying to push for news on the project and then vanishes just as quickly like why is she here she's just annoying unneeded and just appears again and again and again throughout the film anyway it's time for surgery and this seems like the moment the film can really spread its wings as it just looks bonkers there's toothpaste and springs and light bulbs and a mousetrap and it just looks ridiculously fun and great for a child's imagination yeah colombo nintendo all rolled into one i'm not so sure on that quote though meanwhile our baddie is similarly recovering with a new robotic hand dubbing himself as a postmodern captain hook with the title claw which seems pretty fair there's also a mini gag of different hand choices with different sound effects going on in the background which i actually kind of like but it's just a joke no real story potential there just your classic claw archetype so our protagonist finally wakes up and naturally freaks out he face plants he shoots out rockets and he ends up landing on top of brenda how very anime they got me after that fiasco we then come back to the baddies again already and how they're struggling to make that same foot move at all because they're missing one key component a synapse amplifying chip back to brown and he's being taught the basics but it wouldn't be an early 2000s kid film without an egregious amount of borderline harassment with his intentions clearly told to the audience it's time for a montage to become inspector gadget you've got the massive manual the iconic suit that in reality just looks really dodgy you've got the established rules of saying go go gadget and you've got splooging the female love interest in a thick substance i mean sure as a kid i just read this as goofy fun but it's clear someone higher up was just pushing for this theme i mean yeah it's pretty much a theme at this point a tone also this scene with the guru genuinely scared me as a kid sure it's funny but man i scare me still gadgets now ready to take on the world the films had its fun turning every gag into some kind of sex joke what's next well the gadget mobile of course originally known for having all sorts of gadgets and formations itself this time it speaks constantly was this just their attempt to get a slightly more diverse cast involved because everyone else in this film is awfully white if so fair play the dude does occasionally say some pretty great things though that's not very hard when you're constantly rambling paragraphs at us so with gadget on his first quest he tips his hat like the milady man he is and in a real dumb sequence of events doesn't recognize the bad guys when he sees them and i mean sure i guess it's character development and conflict but it's a whole lot of padding and honestly it's just kind of boring we know how it's supposed to go in the end it comes down to the gadget mobile saving the day ew moving on it's time to go to a charity ball cause apparently that's a thing where our main guy claw starts to flirt with an unsuspecting brenda and offers her a job at skolex industries in order to obtain her secrets all the while gadget is spying in probably the least efficient manner possible also skolex industries that's invented for the film and am i reading too hard into the um theme here or is this suspiciously spelled close to another type of industry the film seems obsessed to talk about still she accepts as is planned and that damn mare appears again pushing for gadget to do a photo shoot with the police department finally though i guess it's progress he gets to actually do that policing job he's always wanted to do except everything he's actually put on to do is all a pr move and gadget just has to deal with all the minor cases rather than the big one he actually cares about and confronting the police chief certainly doesn't do him any favors meanwhile in the winning camp claw has managed to create that ship he needs thanks to brenda's research and has created a fully functional clone of inspector gadget himself and you can tell it's evil because it has a tarantula for a heart that's actually pretty neat props to them the real gadget by this point has gone rogue or as rogue as someone as soft and dumb as he can go now pursuing the murder case of claw himself in secret c means yes i knew it ah boy this film is really playing for the bottom bar far more interestingly we now have the clone going absolutely berserk on the city starting fires stacking cars and generally just wreaking havoc with the real gadget piecing the pieces together with pure luck over any kind of skill he then comes to warn brenda with a well-placed grappling hook convincing her to investigate on her own meanwhile he goes on further to steal that classic foot again in a mission impossible moment even when the film's actually starting to do things though it's just sticking to tropes and unoriginal ideas as for things on brenda's side of the story things start going more downhill for the film even further as she then discovers herself turns out claws also made a clone of her this time being a peppy cheerleader type that just wants to have fun what's her purpose for the film well she does actually give us a bit of a lucky piece of exposition telling the true intentions of claw and skolex industries but beyond that it's it's really not much it was probably just an excuse to put jolie fisher into a promiscuous outfit because it won't appeal to the parents in the room if it doesn't have semi-exposed skin am i right and with those two flimsy points being her only purpose in being in the film robert brenda soon cheerleaded her way off of the building no that's literally what happens she's gone now one scene for some fan service loose plotting and shooting down the only real female cast member in the film nice one back to gadget and he's been called for saying gotcha during a stealth mission because you know all the gadgets in his body have just replaced his brain cells apparently now strapped up claw and gadget can clash once again they bicker about sacrifices break the fourth wall talking about cartoons and we learn the purpose of building clones and never say no and just like that claw shuts down gadget by ripping out his card this is getting worse and worse and while robo gadget was going berserk before now he's doing so even more i guess he attacks the police department confronts the chief and with everyone thinking it's the real gadget because it's a dumb freaking child film naturally the chief bows down to him in regret from before the clone continues to jump on cars cause fires and pretends to be godzilla the classic way a kid would just continue to ruin a city i guess i like that all the while the real gadget has been dumped into a local scrap yard with his niece penny and brenda going to save him through the random luck of still having a signal to follow in the gadget mobile and okay and how do they reactivate him through the magic of a kiss yet another oversaturated trope held up by a romantic development that was never really established unless you count the sporadic doses of objectification clearly exerted one way this really is just a formula of a film and definitely a dated one now but yes he's up and atom now established as being because of his heart not because of his thoughts but hey at least that works out well from beforehand time to rocket to the scene whiplash be damned so at this point claw has basically gotten everything he wanted he's got the foot he's got it working he's framed inspector gadget and i guess it's now time to just get out of there right whatever the case they're all now bulked into a single car i guess the godzilla thing got old still it's perfect for a chase scene suddenly also it's daytime now just just run with it and gadget uses the opportunity to smash through the back window and after a couple more dumb gags and go go gadget mummy which i gotta tell you that's a legitimate line in the film the two gadgets end up having to battle on a bridge as the gadget mobile and brenda follow claw onwards all the while claw is just consistently laughing throughout the whole event i guess with his story arc done there's literally nothing else for his character to do really except this one thing the film's really falling apart so it's robo vs robo now with cartoony weapons how does it all go down well it starts off first with your western showdown archetype expanding into the classic dance monkey dance moment you've seen before but now with a minigun which you could argue is transformative i still call it lazy considering the entire arsenal of weapons they could possibly be using and then the real gadget uses an airbag weapon which i mean what is going on similarly confusing brenda confronts claw by smashing into the back of his car only to have him capture and drag her up to the top floor of that evil tower again what a stellar plan now she's just another damsel in distress or also the niece penny gets a bus onto the scene just so you know i don't know how she knows where to go or anything back to the gadgets and somehow now they're both on top of the bridge and the gadget mobile warns gadget of the damsel in distress plotline going on and after a bit of time both gadgets are now dangling off of that bridge i mean you know how it goes though this time the evil version releases that tarantula out of their mouth this moment i gotta admit that's pretty great it's established it's creepy and evil where does it lead to well of course it makes gadget drop down in fear landing them both in shopping trolleys that then immediately start sliding down the road with obstacles to suddenly avoid what i mean how did we end up here there's so many questions and answers that will never make any sense and then on the other side of the conflict penny has now snuck into the whole establishment and confronts that dumb grunt and it leads into him just breaking down about his real dreams in life i mean it's comedy sure but man has it been done before and again it's not really built up as a thing for his character maybe for the other guy but not him where did the science guy even go did i miss that okay so back to inspector gadget and he finally wins the fight by decapitating his clone which would be scary in any other film but here it's alright i i gotta admit it's pretty good managing to make this unscary for kids i wasn't scared that's impressive anyway with the clone disposed of gadget finally gets out his iconic gadget copter and heads towards the final tower and at the scene claw goes on to have his underwear ripped out from underneath his trousers and mans a helicopter himself to escape it's time for the final clash what's the best move for mr claw over here flying away in a specialized vehicle or rushing right towards the flying man you can guess how it goes though to a degree it actually works out with gadget being stuck to the footstool underneath but instead of i don't know flipping him to fall down or crush him against some wall is then just left to his own devices as he tinkers with his tools for a seriously long amount of time sure okay so then of course gadget then shoots off some arrow that hits a button and has claws claw go haywire i didn't even know this was an option up to this point was it supposed to be established earlier because i certainly missed it whatever the case everyone is dropped from the helicopter as everything just goes all haywire and as gadget panicly tries to command any random tool to save them both eventually he picks the parasol right at the last moment this moment actually seems like a pretty fun concept considering he's not actually aware of all of his tools just yet but you know it's surrounded by trash and upon landing naturally it's another romantic scene under a parachute that somehow didn't go off earlier and again this whole arc isn't really build up anymore since brenda hasn't shown any extra interest beyond him still just being her project up to this point and as they officially become a pair after a couple of compliments even though they're not together in the sequel claw 2 comes crashing down and is caged by the gadget mobile though man that car just never stops talking and as the police who arrived demanding to arrest inspector gadget because you know his clone kind of destroyed the whole city and was godzilla that one time somehow the chief is talked down by the little girl penny just appearing and explaining this bonkers turn of events sure and just like that it's a happy ending the mayor appears again credits himself in their administration and then leaves never really giving satisfaction to the audience claude claims he'll get gadget next time and our protagonists have a romantic moment under the stars with a crazy long rocket shot also the car follows another car the end though there are some pretty alright post-credit scenes of what happens to other characters afterwards robert brender apparently survived becoming an aerobics teacher the clone runs around headless now the dumb grunt goes to a minion support group and the niece has a conversation with their dock cool seems like a fun enough send-off though of course none of it actually comes up ever again they did actually make a direct-to-home sequel but everyone in the cars apparently bailed apart from the car and hey wait a minute i recognize that guy that that's the guy from the awful home alone 4 movie man this guy's got terrible luck with his choice of films always the overly cartoony sequels that's wild still as a kid i loved this movie it wasn't my absolute favorite but it had some cool things to look at and it's a shame because i can kind of get what they were going for the whole direction and physics of this movie is intentionally surreal and over the top but at the same time i think it fundamentally comes down to just not translating all that well in live action many people shoot down this movie for having some really bad acting in it and while i can certainly say i see it in certain places i can't now but feel that a lot of it just comes down to the style slathered over the film if you can shut off your brain while watching this film as the targeted audience of young kids is expected to do then this film i guess isn't too bad but if you come to this film with anything of a critical mind you just can't avoid how profoundly stupid the entire thing is sure it's fun to play with an inspector gadget character with all these gizmos but the surrounding padding to how each character interacts and grows and the scenarios they all just get placed into just comes off as just bad at the end of the day and as much as i want to praise the concept of the crazy gizmos in your body idea the more i look into the film the more lazy i see every introduction of a new tool in the film every tool feels like it's been done in some capacity many times before i would have been interested if i saw like that mousetrap get reintroduced somehow at least then it felt smart and inventive you know but no this film is strung together by a series of cliches goofy spectacles and more of that adult tone to entertain the parents the only way these people apparently know how it's to the point that my actual favorite part of the movie isn't actually the main string of events but rather all the better jokes sneaked in around the sides they cram a lot of jokes into this movie and a lot of them aren't really laugh out loud stuff but with the amount that they just throw at you surely a handful will stick occasionally they weren't bad someone's gonna play the old lady but the actual production of the film just seems disastrous in so many ways like a bunch of amateurs were given something really invented to play with and then joe's to take on the immature and executive approved way to get everything done all in all as an inspector gadget film and a live action film in general this whole thing comes off as a massive disappointment i get what they're going for but they really miss the mark that being said the visuals weren't too bad i could kind of believe it and the clone's teeth really sells the fakeness of it all if only people more competent and less pervy were doing it ah well early 2000s will be early 2000s let's hope there's no other films with the same kind of themes oh no my name's been daz you didn't really care at all see you in a bit i kind of enjoyed this film it's just not a good film but it's not a guilty pleasure filming but i feel wrong watching it with how dated it is but at least the concept the cartooniness had potential just missed the mark it just it just missed it just missed it
