From: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Subject: REVIEW: TOYS
Reply-To: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 14:53:30 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.movies
Summary: r.a.m.r. #01647
Keywords: author=Maloney

				   TOYS
		       A film review by Frank Maloney
			Copyright 1992 Frank Maloney

     TOYS is a film directed by Barry Levinson, written by Valerie
Curtin and Barry Levinson.  It stars Robin Williams, Michael Gambon,
Robin Wright, Joan Cusak, LL Cool J, with Donald O'Connor.  It is rated
PG-13, for mild profanity and mature humor.

     TOYS was a disappointment.  I had hoped for something a lot more
energetic, if nothing else.  There is no plot, merely a skeleton on
which to hang a dazzling visual experience.  Michael Gambon and Robin
Williams were both too restrained, too whimsical.  They were both
outshone by Joan Cusak, the only member of the cast who really got the
idea of what they should have been doing.  In fact, the rapper LL Cool J
put in a more interesting performance, even given his inexperience as an
actor.

     Barry Levinson is to blame, of that there can be no doubt.  It was
his idea nearly 15 years ago.  He and his former writing partner Valerie
Curtin wrote the script then; their collaborations include BEST FRIENDS
and JUSTICE FOR ALL, both inferior to his solo writing work (DINER, TIN
MEN) or to the films he only directed (RAIN MAN, BUGSY).  Perhaps, he
should have asked Terry Gilliam to be his script doctor; it definitely
lacks (and needs) that kind of dark imagination.  Levinson is more
interested in making a couple of rather obvious points than in telling a
story.  For example, he rathers earnestly pursues the idea that weapons
are toys for the bloody-minded, that we can choose whether we want our
toys to be life-affirming or lethal.  He gives us some wonderful visual
effects, including a very pointed and chilling scene of generals qua
skeletons.  But, are we to suppose that Barry Levinson thinks that this
is some special vision, some unique insight, vouchsafed only to him that
he can squander so much talent to so little purpose?

     If you want to immerse yourself in Robin Williams' genius for
improvisation, go back to ALADDIN or rent Levinson's GOOD MORNING,
VIETNAM.  You get only a few really memorable Williamsesque moments in
TOYS and long stretches where he has all too little to do.  Williams
gives his all to promoting the film for Levinson and indeed the trailer,
shot in a Spokane wheat field, is vastly better than the movie it
advertises.

     Of the other performers, Joan Cusak is the most memorable in the
role of Williams' sister.  She is otherwordly, fragile, the last word in
gentle space cadets; when her big denouement arrives, we actually can
believe it as earned and established both by the script and by her
performance.  It is one of the few bright spots in the film.  Michael
Gambon, who was so loathsome in THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE, AND HER
LOVER, is mostly addled here.  His evilness become really clear only too
late in the film, a villain who consults his invalid father and calls
him Daddy; it does not suffice.  Robin Wright as the love interest is
supposed to be a female version of Williams, but she fails to convince.
LL Cool J is blunt and slightly amateurish, but earnest and direct in
the way of gifted amateurs.  He plays Gambon's son and the facts of skin
color and lineage are entertainingly ignored.  Finally, Donald O'Connor
puts in a charming cameo as the dying owner of the Zevo toy company.

     But the real and only star of TOYS is the visual effects, the sets,
the production design, the computer animation, and the wonderful,
wonderful toys.  Everything that TOYS lacks in the way of story it
possesses in abundance in visuals.  It is this aspect of the film, a la
Tim Burton, that gives it any chance at all of surviving as something
like the masterpiece that Levinson clearly had in mind for himself.  And
there is something about TOYS that lingers in the mind.  I woke up this
morning thinking about it, having dreamed about it during the night.

     However, I really cannot recommend TOYS to most of you.  If you
have a strong taste for Robin Williams, if you must see every movie that
Barry Levinson makes, if your primary interest is in the visual effects,
then you will go to TOYS.  A lot of non-specialists, however, will stay
away, unless they find themselves with no other movie and the
possibility of a discount ticket.

-- 
Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews