Toys

Written by: Levinson and Valerie Curtin Starring: Robin Williams, Robin Wright, Michael Gambon, LL Cool

An unmitigated disaster from the start, this misguided venture combines the worst elements of "Dick Tracy" (the priority of set design over everything else) and "Hook" (the offensive bombast of forced wonderment--"you will be enchanted by this... or else"). I cannot imagine what Levinson thought he was doing here; I like to believe that this was a failure of execution and not vision, but I fear I may be wrong. It seems pretty clear that Levinson, who is a skilled if not inspired director, should steer far from the script writing department. You know you are in trouble when you realize that the sequence that runs under the credits probably cost more than, say, the whole of “The Crying Game” or “Reservoir Dogs,” and yet it adds absolutely nothing to the plot (of which there is precious little) or the movie as a whole. They try to give Williams an opportunity to do some schtick (I interpret this as a desperation move), and while he gets off some funny lines, they are buried by the ponderousness of the production. There are no characters worthy of attention (well, except Wright, but only to look at) (although, to be fair, LL Cool J barely makes it out unscathed) and no emotion that isn't bludgeoned into an unrecognizable state. The end result is an utterly charmless movie that wastes a lot of good performers. At the end it attempts to create some Rambo-esque toy Armageddon (with a painfully loud soundtrack) which, like the movie, comes crashing and burning down around our ears. When the huge, ungainly thing finally screeches and clanks to a halt, the loudest sound in the theater are the sighs of relief that it's all over. (12/21/92)