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 ‘Moose’ lacks juice A Review By Hannah Pittard “Welcome to Mooseport” opens like molasses: Requisite small-town laughs and lame-duck personalities trickle in one by one. Within less than five minutes, the town’s nude geriatric jogger, vapid-but-buxom blond, rope-eating pet moose and all-around nice guy (Ray Romano) have already been introduced. It isn’t until Gene Hackman (a former president whose claim to fame is his unheard-of approval rating in the 80th percentile and the fact that he’s the only president to have divorced in office) shows up in Mooseport (and also on the screen) that any real charisma appears. But even Hackman, plagued though he is by a Chanel-wearing, money-grubbing ex-wife, can’t keep this movie from feeling hackneyed and its comedy from being flat. Romano dominates from one scene to the next, offering little more than his typical self-deflating one-liners and clichéd “aw-shucks” routine. Marcia Gay Harden is, as usual, fantastic. But her choice to appear in a movie so beneath her typical caliber of performance elicits the same sort of disbelief that Cuba Gooding Jr.’s willingness to appear in a movie with talking dogs (“Snow Dogs”) after winning the Academy Award might once have elicited. Think of “Mooseport” as a “Bagger Vance” without the heart (because, yes, there is plenty of golf) and “Dave” without the wit (because, yes, it does aspire to be a political satire of sorts). Better yet, think of it as “Caddy Shack” without any of the charm. |
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