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"SUPERSTAR"
(1999) (Molly Shannon, Will Ferrell) (PG-13)

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QUICK TAKE:
Comedy: A Catholic schoolgirl hopes that by winning a school talent contest, she'll impress her dream date enough that she'll finally receive her first real kiss from him.
PLOT:
All Catholic schoolgirl Mary Katherine Gallagher (MOLLY SHANNON) wants in life is a Hollywood style kiss, preferably from school heartthrob Sky Corrigan (WILL FERRELL), the best looking and most popular boy at St. Monica's high school. The only problem is, she's something of a nerdy social reject and besides, Sky already has a girlfriend, Evian (ELAINE HENDRIX), the prettiest and most popular girl at their school who can't stand Mary.

Even so, that doesn't stop her from practicing her make out sessions with inanimate objects such as trees. That behavior eventually gets her sent to the school's special ed. class, taught by Father Ritley (MARK McKINNEY) where she meets other students such as the tomboyish Helen (EMMY LAYBOURNE) and Slater (HARLAND WILLIAMS), a silent and mysterious tough guy who seems attracted to Mary.

Mary's big break comes when she hears that the grand prize for her school's "Let's Fight V.D." talent contest is a trip to Hollywood to appear as an extra in a film with positive moral values. Believing that the only way to get her Hollywood kiss is to become a Hollywood superstar, Mary desperately wants to enter, but her grandmother (GLYNIS JOHNS) who's raising her, adamantly refuses.

Nonetheless and despite Evian's attempts to interfere, Mary perseveres, and with some urging from Helen, Slater and even God (WILL FERRELL), enters the competition determined to win the contest and get her kiss from Sky.

OUR TAKE: 3 out of 10
While the success of some of the "graduates" from TV's "Saturday Night Live" -- such as Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers -- in Hollywood is undeniable, the results of turning the program's short skits into full length motion pictures has been a decidedly mixed bag.

While the "Wayne's World" films were clever and did well at the box office (the first much more than the second), "It's Pat" bombed on all fronts. Although "The Blues Brothers" was a lively production and achieved financial success, its sequel didn't, which was also true for both "Coneheads" and last year's awful, "A Night at the Roxbury."

Professional baseball players may be able to get away with more failure than success while at bat over their career and still make millions, but those who make movies usually don't get as much of a break. If you have too many failures, you'll probably lose your movie-making license (which are available for free with a clever story pitch, a few loans and any other form of identification).

Thus, if you're producer Lorne Michaels who created and produced most of "SNL's" shows, do you give it another shot, realizing it could be your last? The answer to that, of course, is yes, and he's chosen to bring the character of Mary Catherine Gallagher to the big screen.

She's the Catholic schoolgirl -- played with ferocious intensity by "SNL" regular Molly Shannon -- who's known to express her feelings via any number of dramatic monologues from her favorite made-for-TV movies, smell her fingers after they've been stuck in her armpits, and wreak slapstick havoc over the set like a bull set loose in a china shop.

Like some of the show's skits, the ones featuring this character are generally amusing and occasionally hilarious. Yet, just like the skit featuring the head-bobbing to the disco beat Butabi brothers that became "A Night at the Roxbury," the question on everyone's mind is whether a several-minute performance can be successfully lengthened for the big screen. While "Roxbury" clearly proved that skit could not, "Superstar" fares a bit better, but ultimately proves that the character and her exploits should have stayed on the small screen.

The biggest problem in adapting one of those skits into a full-length film is developing a plot that can not only showcase the currently familiar attributes, but also expand upon them and introduce new elements that will sustain the audience's interest. Although this film only runs an extremely skimpy eighty-two minutes, it still has a hard time doing just that and runs out of steam and laughs long before the end credits roll.

Much of that can be blamed on director Bruce McCulloch (the recent "Dog Park") and screenwriter Steven Wayne Koren ("A Night at the Roxbury") for simply not infusing the film with more clever, or for that matter, simply funny, comedy. Of course they were obligated to include the familiar moments from the "SNL" skit (mentioned above), but the new material just isn't very funny.

The most obvious omission -- considering Mary's obsession with movies and working in a video store where she watches tapes while rewinding them -- is that more movie spoofs aren't present. While there's a particularly lame homage to the famous spilled pig blood scene from "Carrie," and an equally weak spoof of "Armageddon," that's pretty much it. Given the freedom of a PG-13 rating and no longer stuck within the confines of a short skit, one would have imagined the filmmakers simply going wild with the parodies and imaginative humor. Unfortunately, that's not the case here.

Other than some slightly amusing moments where Mary practices her make out skills with a tree and stop sign post (and gets caught "in the act" by a nun), the rest of the intended humor -- a bloody "Riverdance" style accident, a spoof of supermodels, etc... -- simply fails to hit the right comedic notes.

The same holds true for most of the performances. Although having adults playing teens has a somewhat inherently subversive comical quality to it, beyond Shannon reprising her "SNL" role, the rest of the acting is rather lame. What gives the film some limited life, however, is Shannon ("A Night at the Roxbury," "Never Been Kissed") who simply infuses her character with so much goofy charm that you can't help but like her to some degree.

Of course if you can't stand her character on "SNL," this film clearly won't change your attitude about that. If you don't mind the quirky ticks and physical humor, however, you may just occasionally find something here that will tickle your funny bone, and you have to somewhat appreciate the level of energy that Shannon puts into the character.

Meanwhile, Will Ferrell ("A Night at the Roxbury," the "Austin Powers" films) simply can't do much with his weakly written characters (the football captain and God) and Elaine Hendrix continues to add to her "bitch" resume (after similar roles in "The Parent Trap" and "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion").

The rest of the performances, from the likes of Harland Williams ("Dog Park," "Rocket Man"), Mark McKinney ("Dog Park, "Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy") and veteran actress Glynis Johns ("While You Were Sleeping," an Oscar nominee for "The Sundowners"), suffer from roles that are similarly too shallow and ill-conceived to be anything near comically effective.

Simply put, if you love Molly Shannon playing this character on "Saturday Night Live," you'll probably enjoy at least some parts of this film. For everyone else there are a few random laughs here and there, but without the proper imaginative and/or clever writing and direction, the film simply doesn't make much of an impression, other than being further proof that there's a reason skits should only be a few minutes long. As such, "Superstar" rates as just a 3 out of 10.




Reviewed October 5, 1999 / Posted October 8, 1999


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