Inspector Gadget 2 is what we wanted

remember the uh first Inspector Gadget film yeah don't blame you Simple Story here it starts with a French American cartoon collaboration from the80s Inspector Gadget a cluzo by way of get smart whose main gimmick is his ability to call on the hundreds of technical gadgets stored inside his body somewhere go go gadget on go go gadget C go go gadget colonoscopy he bumbles around in his efforts to fight crime while the real detective work is done by his Super Genius niece Penny and his remarkably upright dog brain guiding him to fight the evil Syndicate mad mad led by the shadowy Dr claw an unseen Bond style villain with the sickest voice in cartoon history because Frank Welker doesn't miss he is there all right exactly what I want him silly funny stupidly entertaining cartoon running on an unwavering formula that was beloved by kids of a certain age like me this the M X-Men Mega matths we had it made chaps none of our shows were bad okay we don't get a lot of formula it cartoons now in a world post air bender but back then this was one of the better ones riffing on jokes that became funnier through unrelenting repetition gadgets complete obliviousness to everyone around him sometimes to the point of sociopathy aha you must be the man from the agency brain trying to speak like a human and making Scooby sound positively fluent the endless catchphrases wow including Dr claw's final words as he'd make his inevitable Escape at the end of every episode get you next time Gadget next time it was comfort food perfect kids TV a fun blend of the previous generation cinematic influences to give us our own slapstick action comedy and it kind of informed my wider understanding of Pop Culture this was the first time I ever found out about the Godfather my parents having to explain this episode was a parody one I still kind of rate as a bit of a high point for the series as Gadget faces off with a Brando sound alike and his Barber Shop quartet of sons okay boys we get Gadget yes papa Peete comedy you've never heard a guy sing an evil laugh before every episode there was some new genre or angle to cover and the music was banging a weird Fusion between the Golden Age of Cinema and a then modern synth sound I guess that's kind of who Gadget was Bridging the past and the future while slipping on a banana so much to love even now nothing groundbreaking by any means but incredibly solid absolutely understanding what its audience wanted so of course Hollywood looked at it and said oh wow amazing uh we'll be doing none of that the gadget movie is a boiler played superhero adaptation as we started to see in the post Tim Burton Batman era where everyone wanted a piece of the adaptation pie some working most not and Gadget is decidedly on the not side opening like an alternate universe version of dream scenario there's a sympathetic origin explaining how he got his gadgets what have they got me on a love interest and a couple nagging bosses that turned him into a put upon Underdog not exactly what was happening in those cartoons I don't know how you trace that gold true genius you are just a publicity start that we have to put up with why don't you just a about face and uh get out of my office Penny's barely in this brain is just a dog and shockingly Dr claw's nowhere to be seen I mean I heard he was in the movie cuz people kept complaining about it but uh nope nothing not a sausage obviously dealing with some kind of Blade Runner recut here this is a movie made in a world with no social media execs and creatives running a marck with children's properties without fear of reprisal which is almost impressive even enviable if the stunningly weird decisions they made weren't part of why you see so much defensiveness from fans now I'm imagining the meetings as we speak all right fellas I got a I got a billion dollar idea right here now see he's got a transforming car he's got a car and I think why doesn't the car talk let's make it like that night rider guy but not night rer that's dumb don't do that uh let's uh give him a voice it's like a people voice sassy it's a a voice tip with the youth got to we the belt baby it's a Disney movie yeah pretty wacky stuff better watch out with theying psycho pills every decision just raises more questions I don't get why everything in this dream is green I don't get why there's a robot clone of the love interest to get across this one bit of exposition what foot the one he stole and copy to make me and Doug's right why is there a wide angle shot of a fat guy reacting to every joke slapstick huh idiot occasionally it'll do things where I go all right I sort of see what you're doing I guess I I see why that's there in the construction of the reality I live in but the majority doesn't make sense not unless you're on the same wavelength as its creators you know face down in a pile of coke yeah let's spend the time and money to introduce gadget's outfit like it's some big superhero costume reveal the gadget suit like it's a hat and coat I just assumed he own those but uh you do you these aren't even Bad actors you'll find them in plenty of projects they're good Dabney Coleman bro he's a funny guy he's principal prickley my big saggy butt Rodrick isn't even bad well all right he's bad as Gadget playing him as a fish-eyed innocent small Bean but he's great as evil Gadget doing impressions of Kagney and Godzilla I guess it's even more fascinating now looking back within the climate of the 2020s where almost everything is now an adaptation of an established franchise with endless debates over its closeness to the source which I don't feel is the only issue here doesn't help no points for that but it's not inherently the problem for all the social media inks spilled on these arguments looking at Gadget I don't think we appreciate how much Fidelity we have now actually go outside and these things what would you prefer yellow spandex choices made to include stuff you couldn't imagine existing on screen not back then for better or worse if you're fighting about whether or not Thanos is totally close to the comics how they turned his motivations from physical to metaphorical you're leaping over what we would have said in the '90s which is Thanos is in this what but there's nothing inherently wrong with an adaptation that appends the source material completely to make a film that works on its own the mask went from being about a gritty R-rated freak of nature who's never truly been the same person twice to a 9s superhero parody processed through the Golden Age of Hollywood craze going on at the time and the movie was and is seen as a major success nobody's online going hey this sucks where's Walter he's kind of this guy kind of in fact he's actually in the spin-off cartoon along with other kinds of people the those people fish people but I think in all cases what people respond to is the clarity of intent and how it captures the spirit of the original idea in a brand new format The Mask rounds off the edges and goes for a much broader style of Comedy but is still a mad cap anarchic spin on what the comic was already doing with an expert performance from a guy who might actually be a cartoon look Ma I'm roadkill this guy's my Deadpool honestly I'll go as far as to say I think he's crazier Wade was pretty in dealing with this douchebag in an effort to look nice in front of a girl compared to what ipkiss does to some guy's ass for overcharging hold on your nuts it's time for an overhaul but both these films and other adaptations either close or not close to the source sometimes work because they capture the feel of the source on some level or execute a good idea from it well with a clear intention that Gadget never even begins to approach it's in service of nothing marking up most of its runtime with just laying down what's happening instead of making us instinctively feel why we should care existing not for any reason that explains why the source retained an audience just because the balance sheet said it might do all right or maybe because someone made a bet on who could make the most off-the-wall McDonald's toy yet who's to say it's a wrof it's a woozy it's a wzy it's not worth getting worked up about all these years later even if it was quite fun to do it for a bit then Inspector Gadget is a mess Inspector Gadget 2 Evil's a foot is better this is where people switch off because frankly we're all sick of it you get online you see people prizz about how the childhood film you grew up on was actually a misunderstood Masterpiece even though all the adults before you couldn't stand it and then we're in undated with nervous exec seeing those takes get thousands of likes leading to a slew of cashings and plements rather than any great new stories it's a nightmare a war economy I hate it uh but I also like money so now it's my turn though I'm not going to say this is an underrated classic or a masterpiece or whatever these are easy ways to get positive attention without really talking about the movie which is unsurprisingly a nostalgic Touchstone for me absolutely speaking to the success of its release on home video but Gadget is an exception I find myself coming back to Gadget 2 in a way I don't with a lot of other nostalgic spin-offs and the reasons I liked it then aren't far off the reasons why I like it now on the level it's aimed at and with the resources they did and didn't have it's an entertaining time and as the sequel to maybe one of the more baffling adaptations it's actually actually an interesting case study in capturing what worked about The Source by playing it straight wowers a sort of you excuse me for one minute Gadget 2 just cuts right to it Inspector Gadget now fighting crime as his day job but suddenly experiencing a slew of unavoidable glitches that stop the gadgets he wants to use from appearing causing a lot of booy as they say stery slap stickery these are getting kind of trickery the police department in response have been working on a potential backup a second Gadget officer that works on flawed technology as well as being completely robotic and therefore unable to make mistakes but is unveiled at a time when an evil force decides to make a return as shot by Sam Ry someone's going to be mad I said that Gadget is a little too distracted to prove himself to be of any help but with the help of Penny and brain he might just be able to defeat the Mad agents while hey oh hey now this this is just straight up An Inspector Gadget episode what no that doesn't happen what other jokes can I put in here no weird workarounds to try and circumvent the formula of the original no bizu interpretations of the characters for the most part no gadgetinis gadgetinis hey I like that show get lost goodbye and maybe it's because the movie is aware of what it is a direct to video lowbudget feature filmed in Australia very likely to avoid tax issues but we'll assume the statute of limitations is up on that one in a way this kind of gives it a gorilla film making feel some simple digital effects a lot of practical nonsense which we all take our shirts off for now and a host of local Australian actors playing it absolutely at the level it should always have been played at it's got a readable plot with arcs it's got a mystery element figuring out the villain's evil scheme and it even has characterizations that feel like somebody looked at the cartoon for more than a minute maybe 2 minutes it is for my money the best adaptation of Gadget yet and a big part of it may actually be its Central performance and when we interrogate criminals I'll play good Gadget and you can play Bad Gadget I don't think so okay then you play good Gadget I'll be bad Gadget here's the reason brc's Gadget fails oh it's go go gadget I I really like it Don Adams take was innocent and naive yes but he wasn't humble this Budd is a finely tuned instrument capable of amazing Feats of Strength the guy was a cop and played up his patronizing sense of entitlement of moral Authority making every sentence out of his mouth a lecture often one he knew absolutely nothing about we're sinking a warehouse sinking not likely my mad friend there's only one way to handle us we're all under arrest everyone remain here while I go look for a policeman a perfect three-point land you must take your finger and put it in the but that's what gives it the Cadence you can do impressions of that's why Mike matate thought this was a good idea it was always funny because he was always wrong but never broke character coming back around to making him endearing truly believing in his job and making an effort to be helpful even if he wasn't terribly self-aware and yet everybody still thought he was a real threat it was great excuse me gentlemen I'm looking for a policeman to report a f it's no use Dr claw gadget's caught up with this you never get all that from brri who was really playing it like he was the chosen one destined to prove his worth by being a nice guy for all that meant it just didn't work you never felt he was Gadget but you do feel it with French Stewart ma'am do you do you know that drag racing on public roads is legal does he sound exactly like Dawn no but the attitude is so on point you don't feel a difference you'll never guess what happened claw escaped not to worry G2 I'll get us out of this go go gadget scissors you get back to school and I'll see you tonight and you I hope you like prison food and while it might seem like he's working it a bit hard if you're over the age of two claw clue a clue back claw the relentlessness of his attitude the repetition and the complete sense of conviction is what makes it like the cartoon and gets even more endearing as it goes no what is above the law this is what you also said last week when you arrested that troop of girl Rangers for selling cookies those cookies were 3 days past expiration date the naivity is even played with more Nuance than I expected because everything is so Disney Channel big it makes the moments where he brings it down actually more heartbreaking like the guy knows there's a reality to to address but thinks putting on his silly little Act is the only way to get taken seriously a role he's expected to play compared to who he really is Chief all I ever wanted to be my entire life was a crime fighter your badge this is the kind of stuff they were getting into in Copland folks it's stuff like that which catches me off guard and makes me see him as maybe the most rounded version of the character things I don't think people were expecting to ever hear someone say about that guy off Third Rock but hey here we are and the history of hair loss in my family small Point as well but I'm glad they recognized the Dick Tracy outfit from the original was kind of off and finally put him in the Overcoat my undiagnosed OCD thanks you everything's fine and there's more than just Gadget which feels closer because this thing doesn't just have corrections to the first film but actual deep Cuts these three henchmen claw hires might seem like random thugs that yeah really tells you this was the 2000s and you must be the one they call the Ninja Ninja why do they call that but they were all on the show squint he was in it the ninja yes a specific ninja who goes W in flavors of success and [Music] failure and jungle Bob though I don't remember him being jacked no problem love oh I see couldn't get Hugh Jackman so we got a huge jacked man I'm sure I stole that joke Penny and brain like the show have a more active role in solving the case actually processing the clues in a way that had me like oh that's smart I guess and the the girl playing Penny isn't bad way closer to the attitude I remember from the show which means the other Uncle Gadget was Presto chaino I've got to find him fast must have gone out of business cuz it's not in any of the directories after 1960 first girl sat around a lot and remember that always seemed kind of annoyed to be there like what did we do what did I do none of that here two very wholesome performances and you almost believe this gadget could be a decent parent for a change I'll see you tomorrow don't forget to brush your teeth he and Penny have good family chemistry and I like that she actually gets frustrated with him feels like there's actually some goddamn Dynamics in this thing they pooped out onto a VHS this is work for a serious law enforcement professional you mean like a bathroom attendant exactly naturally there's a few adaptational hiccups partly due to the fact that even with the corrections it still tries to work as a sequel now with that slightly awkward tween energy of a Disney Channel spin-off C I might have done the first film's Quin be a little dirty earlier in in the video as his attitude does change at the end implying he's going to become the Quimby of the cartoon and the sequel kind of drops the ball by upping the anger to a Flintstone [Music] levels you don't mind so much because he's played well and intensely and it's actually kind of scary Reservoir Dogs I'm not sure how I feel about their attempt to get brain talking cute CAG I guess got Jeff Bennett some cash I'm getting a little tired of liver flavored kibble all the time but even the stuff that isn't as close or based on anything lands better than the first time around the May no longer a lame joke and now randomly some form of Judy Garland is this drag race that's a sister joke she did that one is that my camera I don't even hate the car this time he's not only more organically all over the movie but they actually gave some banter to work with Beyond him being the cool wise ass like everyone now acknowledges that him being there is kind of weird you are tricked out with more Factory exit than the Batmobile just sure that it's all good under the hood all right I have no idea what you just said but I'm sure that if I were a car it would have been very helpful hell this final joke tells him to get sted mission accomplished but the closest fix is Dr claw and he is honestly a [Applause] delight not because he's on point not at all while there's an effort to get closer he still has a claw the voice is off uh less like the real claw and more like I don't know your dad or something I'm so evil but I kind of love it to me that's right Gadget is basically dad humor and CLA is him putting on a silly voice and running around the Garden in his weird hat which is a second great excuse for me to have the Godfather in the edit Bay of course this also means we get to actually try and do the thing of hiding claw's face even if they don't do a great job but the effort is appreciated and not only cuz we can't get Everett back nor would we want to to me this is an important conceit because as far as I'm concerned Dr claw doesn't have a face oh I'm sorry you bought a toy in the 80s with the sticker over the package you peeled it off to reveal this and you want to just like accept that oh they used that image in a cheapo game once or twice oh I see oh it must be Canon now nah I don't buy it here even the official artist is like no way it's whatever you want it's your face you own it what is Cannon what is reality who governs it what are the rules that said there is one weird undercurrent They carried over and I can't tell if it's just me in the first movie claw loses his hand in a stupidly convoluted way Gadget crashes his car claw blows it up a bowling ball flies out of the trunk kasplat fast forward to this movie and he's hiding out in an abandoned bowling alley dressing his henchmen in bowling shirts sitting on his 10 pin version of the Iron Throne they never get into it but the gag of how far the bowling theme feeds into mad's production design keeps building through the movie and I don't know it feels like somebody thought about that feels like someone had an idea to express that's psychologically weird and I dig that man I'm I'm here for all of it there's decent jokes in here this is a funny movie notice anything suspicious about those musicians aside from the fact that the music doesn't match the instruments they're playing there's a lot that feels like it had more thought than you expect including the one major New Edition the Rival Gadget G2 and I have to tell you this is what maybe puts the film over into necessary fan territory this design this character could fit in perfectly with the actual show not just making a lady Gadget but giving her her own personality with a French police uniform genius someone opened a book she makes an impression beyond the look too with her super tough outlook on crime and a punch first attitude offer some real fun Dynamics compared to gadget stop this felonious and unlawful act or I shall have to use Force she's basically RoboCop more than he is well then we'll just destroy it she'd absolutely get a guy acid burn for real I don't think a new Gadget thing is being honest with themselves if they don't bring her back you can't expect a Greg wisman style invested fan narrative or a deep cut Dexter satire if G2 isn't there that's going to be your watermark going forward for anyone who really cares about this I guarantee I was wrong to think of you as aept clumsy imbecilic don't mention it obsolete simple-minded malfunction it's funny that two Gadget films have now done the replacement Gadget plot but this one does it better by actually having a plot I can understand while sober gadget's feeling obsolete he gets replaced he tries to prove himself Penny feels the same goes out of her way to get her own recognition in spite of everyone telling her no there's conflict there's conflict in this movie oh no even G2 ends up becoming trash like Gadget and decides to swap processing chips to take on his human flaws while helping his own with Gadget realizing not every silly power he has is a drawback and in the end everyone learns to love their imperfections boom done amazing sounds pretty basic right easy stuff well there are multi-billion dollar Hollywood Blockbusters not putting this into practice I feel some movies have the gadget one problem where they feel like they have to not just set up but overly justify all their Concepts to an audience rather than explore the existing potential of the property tying itself in narrative knots to get there Gadget 2 trusts the material and keeps it simple and in doing so actually grants us faster access to character emotions thematic arcs and all the extra new ideas they can build to gadget always glitching was a constant issue in the series go go gadget CER no no no so it's nice to have him movie that actually does something with that and tries to for the first time almost resolve it within its thematic message of self-respect unlike the first film which is vaguely about be pure of heart and not spider of heart you dope of course I'm massively biased here this gets quoted quite often around these hair Parts stolen money steak out not at the steak out he's a very busy man I'm a busy man too but I don't feel a connection to gadget one which I was desperate to see when it came out I was immensely bored confused and disapp appointed and hey over 20 years later still the case happy birthday to me plenty of other kiddies movies get a pass on way less why not Gadget to two no no no no no no no no no no no no no the whole thing is weirdly Plucky that this tiny movie made for babies is making an effort and having fun with the process throwing in little funny bits and quirks I've been thinking about for years this fellow was just some guy they found who looked like that and they were like hey Dr Robotnik B our mov movie The Mayor is actually quite a distinguished performer with a dramatic rap sheet as long as your arm not that youd know 5 miles out of Bendigo there were whole deleted scenes where claw was going to call out Penny never getting the credit and a bid to make her join him that's not a bad Arc either I'll listen to you I'll take you seriously how is it I know so much about this well I'll tell you because the DVD this came out on is stacked I'm pretty sure being a director video Gadget 2 is one of the earliest DVDs to exist ever and they were packing those things with just about every extra you can imagine part of the reason I refuse to sell these anymore it's got it all behind the scenes logs prop tests interviews I had to do a double take when I saw it inexplicably had a commentary track with the director and leads for you in your mind when you came on board knowing that someone else had played an earlier version it was like James Bond it's like a new deal no the way I I feel like it's a new deal cuz it's like Batman yeah Val Kilmer's Batman is not George Clooney's Batman kind of had you know Don Adams in my mind probably a little bit a little bit more and and in in spots you can hear that it's a blatant just rip off you can laugh that this exists but the fact it's reasonably candid and packs genuine surprising insights implies there was good thinking going on behind the cameras and whatever you may think of its Effectiveness they clearly had some investment going in and I've always gone by the philosophy and this is something that I know the marks Brothers used to do when they making their movies that they would get the perfect length movie and then cut 5 minutes a and I think it leaves you wanting more and it leaves you with no extraneous uh fat or or information you know there's a couple things that sure I miss on a storying level but not on a pce level please tell me it's true for Country Bears 2 I need to know what was going on with Walkin oh no it's the joy of Nickelodeon gune media of embracing the fun of being a kid's property without acting like it knows better played so earnestly it sometimes gets a little high on the sniff of its own Ambitions and uh I do too [Music] actually go go gadget power brush you weren't there you were not there when I was watching this with friends and accidentally preempted this Moment by breaking down into nervous gar giggling setting off a chain reaction of laughter and when they asked what was going on all I could manage all I could say before it happened was poopy toilets we all knew what that meant we'd all experienced it as kids in the 2000s and we all died when we saw this puppet I think most media wins the argument by throwing one across the screen honestly be careful in there that toilet's got quite a flush it is quite something to see the effort at this level for something they knew probably wasn't going to be widely viewed and clearly was never intended to be all that seriously thought of but I think all those extras almost validates the positive energy coming off this thing and the Delight it brought to me and my sister years ago the DVD was presented to us and we were like oh really having not loved the first one since the day we realized it was actually great we've sat in front of it many times with others all of who got it to the point where it became a bit of cultural shorthand right down to FR Stewart's face popping up around my University House share is it rear window no is it Amadeus no is it Postman Pat the movie a close but what it is for me is a pretty Baseline example of the appeal of doing an adaptation especially for a kid's property I say this even as a fan of the gnell gun Scooby movies because frankly that first one is a it's pretty nasty I don't mean that in a bad way it's just the vibe kind of a grotty up yours to tradition in an edgy take on the property but not one I think of as a definitive new Scooby adaptation which is why Scooby-Doo 2 is much closer to Inspector Gadget 2 terrry in my eyes they play The Source straight they dig into what's already available and use the potential to tell an entertaining story on the next level of intensity giving off the impression they actually lik the property and cared about sharing that with a wider audience still had a poopy toilet moment of course uh one that's so needlessly aggressive it made me grease Skeleton Man but like Inspector Gadget 2 it's more interested in playing to the strength of the source which feels like that should be a no-brainer but isn't always a guarantee either no I'm not elaborating which is why I look to the consistency of the vision in question whenever it comes to these things sure I have no true answers in the age of the Remake reboot Revival or recel Ruby dooby-doo but I think it's simply down to having a reason any reason having something when I watch that makes me go oh you cared to tell this story I see it I get it I can understand the mask I can understand Scooby-Doo too and I can understand Inspector Gadget 2 in a way I really can't with the first one and it's more than featuring things I remember and going hey oh we're fans too and you do it too and I recognize that it's using them in ways that show an understanding of why they worked for the source why they're worth doing doing again and how they can be embellished in a 90-minute runtime while having fun in the process I think Gadget 2 is what it purports to be a light-hearted cash in on a then popular brand and just so happened to use that opportunity to make Corrections it didn't have to yet we can be grateful for existing at all I don't think it needs recognition of any great magnitude in return uh we don't have to all suddenly get out there and support it and get a Revival to happen now or else maybe give fren Stewart a nice tweet or something I don't know he he kind of deserves it just a check what I do want to do is tip the hat to its existence acknowledge there was actually something out there that recognized this could be done differently and on very little money and time actually made a decent correction justifying why something like the cartoon had an audience to begin with it made an effort it wanted to do something good and you know that's all you can ever really ask of these things in it I'll get you next time gget all of this so that you probably watch the film and go what the bloody hell was he on about this apron can protect me from getting burned well it's a good thing I wore an apron

Channel: B- Mask

Views: 260,794

Keywords: Inspector Gadget, Inspector Gadget 2, Inspector Gadget 2 review, Inspector Gadget movie, Inspector Gadget 2 movie, Inspector Gadget B-Mask, Inspector Gadget sequel, Inspector Gadget G2, Inspector Gadget retrospective, Inspector Gadget review, Inspector Gadget cartoon

Id: vSTn-K8E3KE

Length: 27min 45sec (1665 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2024