I smell studio hackery here. Anyway, here is my review from March:
I saw a screening of this in Los Angeles (3-3-05), and it was not that good. It is not so much a sequel as it is a re imagining of the series. They seem to have dropped the premise of Strangers with Candy being a parody of after school specials, and made it a just another comedy. The whole cast is back, except the original brother, who is now played by another actor who is trying to imitate the original guy, and Jeri's friend Orlando has been replaced by a similar character.
Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker bring the proceedings to a screeching halt every time they appear on screen. The original members of the cast (Sedaris, Colbert, Rush) are great, but it just doesn't hang together. The spirit of the series is not here. That said, it certainly does have it's funny moments, such as a montage of Jeri's life in prison and on the streets. Other than that, it's just a pale copy of what the TV series was with recycled gags and many jokes that just don't work. I wonder why they even did this movie since the series finale was so great.
They did a focus group afterwords, which suggests that maybe the studio thinks the movie is in trouble.
I saw a screening of this in Los Angeles (3-3-05), and it was not that good. It is not so much a sequel as it is a re imagining of the series. They seem to have dropped the premise of Strangers with Candy being a parody of after school specials, and made it a just another comedy. The whole cast is back, except the original brother, who is now played by another actor who is trying to imitate the original guy, and Jeri's friend Orlando has been replaced by a similar character.
Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker bring the proceedings to a screeching halt every time they appear on screen. The original members of the cast (Sedaris, Colbert, Rush) are great, but it just doesn't hang together. The spirit of the series is not here. That said, it certainly does have it's funny moments, such as a montage of Jeri's life in prison and on the streets. Other than that, it's just a pale copy of what the TV series was with recycled gags and many jokes that just don't work. I wonder why they even did this movie since the series finale was so great.
They did a focus group afterwords, which suggests that maybe the studio thinks the movie is in trouble.