Quasi

Year 16, Day 286 - 10/12/24 - Movie #4,871

BEFORE: Yeah, this one doesn't look like a horror movie, either - it's a very tenuous connection because ihunchbacks are sort of a staple in horror movies, always serving as those deformed lab assistants working for mad scientists like Dr. Frankenstein and such.  And I think back in the day Lon Chaney played Quasimodo in an early film version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", one which IMDB classifies as a horror film. Of course it's based on a classic French novel by Victor Hugo, but I bet the early 20th century Hollywood versions got it all wrong and made Quasimodo out to be a shocking monster.  Then of course in 1996 DisneyCorp. came out with their version, which recast him as the hero of the story, part of their new mandate to stop making films about beautiful people and try to be more inclusive, but the film had animated singing gargoyle characters in it AND changed the novel's ending to a happy one, so really, most people don't even talk about that version any more. 

This new version is a satirical comedy from the Broken Lizard guys, the ones who made "Super Troopers" and "Beerfest" and "Club Dread" and "The Slammin' Salmon", which are all films that i enjoy and watch every time I see they're on TV.  OK, maybe it took a couple tries to enjoy "The Slammin' Salmon", but after watching it with my wife I got there, so I'm willing to give these guys the benefit of the doubt.  When I heard they made a new film about Quasimodo, I figured I'd have to watch it as soon as possible, and so today is "as soon as possible" - still, it took me a year and a half to be able to link to it. 

Brian Cox carries over from "The Water Horse".

THE PLOT: A hapless hunchback who yearns for love finds himself in the middle of a murderous feud between the Pope and the king of France when each orders the hunchback to kill the other. 

AFTER: Yeah, this was about what I expected - damn, I really was hoping for a better film experience tonight, but this film just does NOT reach the quality level of Broken Lizard's previous films. "Super Troopers" (and its sequel) were just brilliant, like I saw that film at the Sundance Festival back in 2001, and I had to tell everybody about it when I got back to NY, how it was one of the funniest films I'd ever seen, and it's endlessly re-watchable, as I said. I'll watch that or "Beerfest" or "Club Dread" any time they're on, and I've seen each one at least a dozen times.  

(They opened a new German restaurant out in Stony Brook, Long Island, called Schnitzel's, and I said we had to go there because it was no doubt a reference to the fake restaurant in "Beerfest", which was called "Schnitzengiggles". Yeah, they serve beer in a boot and the staff at the restaurant seems to be in on the joke, because they host beer stein holding competitions and the servers wear punny t-shirts. There's also a restaurant out in Ronkonkoma called Shenanigan's, which is the name of the fake restaurant mentioned in "Super Troopers", but we haven't made it there yet.)

Anyway, "Quasi" kind of let me down because it's just not as funny as those other Broken Lizard movies, so I'm kind of upset that they spent a couple years making this one, when they could have been filming "Potfest", the proposed sequel that they teased at the end of "Beerfest".  Hey, it's legal now in a lot of places, so why not?  Is watching people get stoned just not as funny as watching them get drunk?  Because it worked out OK for Cheech & Chong.  

I don't think they kept anything intact from the original VIctor Hugo novel, like where the hell is the Notre Dame cathedral and why is Quasimodo a low-level torturer and not a bell-ringer?  He makes references to "growing up in a bell tower", but the whole point of the original story is that he does the bell-ringing job that nobody else wants to, because it would probably make them deaf, plus he serves in sort of the "Phantom of the Opera" role, being the guy backstage who calls everyone to church with the bells, and if you take that away from the character, what are you left with, besides a whole lot of nothing?  

In the novel he falls in love with a Gypsy girl, and, well, let's just say it doesn't end well, not for him or her or anyone, really, because 15th century France really sucked. In this film Quasi is enamored by the Queen, but of course she's totally out of his league - or is she?  Maybe she's into freaky stuff with freaks, they kind of suggest that here in this film that's set back then but has all their characters acting like modern people, with a nod and a wink.  Satire may be set centuries ago in the past, but it's meant to be a commentary on the time it was made, which is now.  So sure, let's make fun of kings and popes because they're not as powerful as they used to be.  And let's make fun of torturing heretics and people dying from the plague and how kings abused their power, because it's what Mel Brooks and/or Monty Python would do. 

Each member of the Broken Lizard troupe plays at least two characters here, which is a very Monty Python-type thing to do.  Back then for "The Holy Grain" and "Life of Brian" it was quite possibly just a cost-cutting measure, they couldn't afford to hire more actors so each Python guy needed to play at least three roles.  I was pretty confused as a kid, because even then I wanted to know the name of every actor, and I didn't quite understand why the actor who played King Arthur also played a castle guard with the hiccups and the middle head of a three-headed monster knight.  Didn't this bother anyone else?  Just me, a 12-year-old kid?  (And that ending of "Holy Grail" bothered me, too - but Eric Idle was on the talk-show circuit last week explaining that, yes, well, they did run out of money at that point. Explains a lot.)

I wish I could say that "Quasi" makes some valid points about the futility of the feudal system or the ridiculousness of the Pope or religion, or what happened in old-time Europe when the King disagreed with the Pope, and people died as a result.  But no, it's all for laughs here as people get tortured and killed just because the people in power want to act like spoiled children.  OK, great, go for the humor, but then why isn't this film funnier?  Because comedy isn't easy, that's why, if it were then everyone would do it and everything would be funny, and it's just not. Even experienced comedians make bad comedies that aren't very funny, because that's subjective and it depends on connecting with the audience, and you just don't know if a film is going to succeed at that, until it doesn't.  

Plus they made the same mistake here as Disney did back in the mid-90's, they gave it a happy ending - by which I mean that the evil men who were in power die, and Quasimodo somehow comes out on top and finds love and also, against all odds and through unfathomly impossible plot twists, also becomes king.  So the whole point of the novel is missing here, which is that the system in 15th century France would totally prevent a deformed bell-ringer or a Gypsy girl from getting ahead.  The deck would have been totally stacked against them, and success was not an option. Let's be real for a second. 

This one's good for a couple quick laughs, but I don't see this becoming any sort of cult classic or repeat favorite.  Feels like some people spent so much time working on their basic cable TV sitcom that they forgot how to make a funny movie. 

Also starring Steve Lemme (last seen in "Super Troopers 2"), Jay Chandrasekhar (ditto), Paul Soter (ditto), Kevin Heffernan (last heard in "Scoob!"), Erik Stolhanske (last seen in "The Onion Movie"), Adrianne Palicki (last seen in "John Wick"), Eugene Cordero (last seen in "When in Rome"), Marcus Henderson (last seen in "Pete's Dragon"), Gabriel Hogan (last seen in "Head in the Clouds"), Hassie Harrison, Gabrielle Lane, Michael Yurchak (last seen in "The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two"), Phil Hudson, Richard Perello (also last seen in "Super Troopers 2"), Ken May.

RATING: 5 out of 10 Belon oysters