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Review

Mel Brooks' hilarious 1968 comedy is reincarnated as a musical, based on the Tony Award-winning show, with much of the humor, gags and fervor of the original film and its acclaimed stage production intact. However, this tune-filled lark is still no substitute for either the '68 movie or the long-running show. Having given one of the great performances on Broadway in the last 20 years, Lane re-creates that part with all timing and pizzaz of an old master. He plays Max Bialystock, a washed-up producer who teams with mild-mannered accountant Leo Bloom (Broderick, re-creating his flavorful Broadway role but paling on-screen to the earlier film's Gene Wilder) to find and stage the worst play ever written, and thereby embezzle a fortune in cash. On their way to sometimes ferocioulsy funny fraud, they meet a Brooksian array of characters, including a Nazi author (Ferrell, who is damn good in the part), a sexy Swedish secretary (Thurman showing off her musical pipes) and a swishy gay director (the maniacally funny Beach) who puts the "boy" in flamboyant. On stage, this show was non-stop laughs, perfectly timed for maximum hilarity by its director Stroman, who makes her filmic debut here. However, a novice probably shouldn't have been given such rich material, as occasionally the pacing is off and the film takes forever to get going. But when it kicks into gear, the smiles, laughs and even guffaws are plenty, thanks mostly to the undeniably funny characters and situations invented by Brooks back in 1968. There's no beating classic comedy, and this film is awash in it.

 -- David Bleiler