Awful, overblown, overrated, boring. Where's Abbott and Costello when we need them?

Rating: 1/10 (24 June 2007)

What an awful, overblown, overrated, boring movie. The only thing interesting about this movie is how many holes can be punched through the dumb, simplistic and unconvincing story. Two ex-British soldiers, supposedly Freemasons, conspire to bamboozle and defraud an entire country? Yeah ... right. These two characters are so dumb that they couldn't even defraud each other. No one in their right mind, or even in their wrong mind, would have had anything to to do with these obvious phonies. There is such a thing as literary license, but literary license has its limits too which this movie blatantly ignores. And what's even worse is the movie's ridiculously shabby portrayal of Freemasonry, a treatment that is entirely unwarranted and which undeservedly casts Freemasonry in a negative light. This is the kind of movie that would have been perfect for Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello ... or maybe Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton ... or better yet, Sergeant Bilko and Corporal Paperelli or Jack Benny and Rochester. Or what about Laverne and Shirley or Lenny and Squiggy or Pat and Mike or Popeye and Bluto or Mickey and Minnie Mouse or Dobbie Gillis and Maynard G. Krebs or George Jefferson and Archie Bunker? Or what Rain Man and Alvy Singer? Put these characters in the lead roles and you have a first rate comedy.
If you want to watch a good movie from the charlatan-masquerading-as-king genre, watch the Emperor Jones, or better yet read the play.