the army comedy genre has never turned out a truly good movie ( if you do n't count neil simon 's biloxi blues ) .
year after year , more predictably cliched military movies come out -- most recently sgt .
bilko -- and none of them ever manage to be anything more than a rehash of the last .
i thought stripes would be different .
with ivan reitman as director , bill murray as star and harold ramis as co - star and co - screenwriter , it seemed like it would be ghostbusters in the army .
instead , it was a bunch of unfunny crap in the army .
murray , about as funny and sophisticated here as he was in meatballs , plays a loser cab driver who sees the army as his only chance for success , and convinces his friend ramis to enlist with him .
so he does , and we get the obligatory drill sergeant from hell , head - shaving and marching / singing sequences ,
more mind - numbingly stale here than ever .
the characters are even less original , ranging from underachieving slob john candy to incompetent captain john larroquette .
all the big name stars in stripes ( and even larroquette ) fall victim to the lame , rehashed material and are never really likeable , murray in particular .
he only gets a few decent lines in , although those barely - funny one liners pale in comparison to the hilarious peter venkman character he played three years later in ghostbusters .
he was even better in caddyshack , for crying out loud .
as with a lot of the late 70 's / early 80 's comedies , stripes is a completely juvenile movie only a child would like
but is so sex-
obsessed no child should be able to watch it .
i 'm sure it seems funny on paper to have candy pay over $ 400 to mud
wrestle five beautiful women , but while watching it all that was coming out of my mouth was the admonition " dear god !
"
every few seconds .
stripes is n't the playful kind of sex comedy , either .
most of the time
it seems downright misogynistic , as when larroquette uses his telescope to peer into the women 's showers or murray lifts a female m .
p .
onto the stove and , with an i
- know - what - you - like look on his face , says he 's going to give her the " aunt jemima treatment , " which means shoving a spatula under her butt repeatedly .
you do n't want to stick around as the scene progresses and he uses an ice cream scoop on her genital region .
"
i 'm not enjoying this , " the woman protests .
my sentiments exactly .
it seems downright misogynistic " i 'm not enjoying this , " the woman protests . my sentiments exactly . anything more than a rehash of the last while watching it all that was coming out of my mouth was the admonition " dear god ! " every few seconds a completely juvenile movie only a child would like obligatory fall victim to the lame , rehashed material and are never really likeable instead , it was a bunch of unfunny crap year after year , more predictably cliched military movies come out more mind - numbingly stale here than ever . the characters are even less original