TheRetroCritic

CREAM away San Diego, cream away... ...and now it's THIS teaser's time to play.

John Carpenter makes the very best of an inherently silly idea to create one of the best movie killers ever.  A personal favourite of mine, this "typical" story of boy meets car, car kills people is a lot of fun from start to finish and is probably one of Carpenter's most underrated little gems. Keith Gordon is brilliant as the nerd-turned-rebel and his growing insanity is a delight to witness. Not to mention Robert Prosky's slimy, foul-mouthed mechanic who almost steals the show by being hilariously repulsive. As far as Stephen King film adaptations go, this is one of the good ones. Carpenter's moody score and playful direction creating a slightly tongue-in-cheek but genuinely unnerving slasher movie (without any slashing). Some scenes are just ridiculously awesome like when Christine is set alight and pursues one of the piss-taking bullies down a deserted road or when the car is smashed to pieces and it fixes itself...by itself. All in all,

Something of a classic in France, the "original" Dinner For Schmucks, Francis Veber's Le Diner De Cons , was, it must be said, overrated to begin with. French to US film adaptations are never a great success but occasionally you do get something that's at the very least about as decent as the original ( Three Fugitives , Father's Day ). And although Diner De Cons did the job, there was definitely room for improvement. And to be fair, Dinner For Schmucks does really well to fix some of the original's flaws. For one thing, you actually get to SEE the titular dinner! And it is gloriously ridiculous. Plus, whereas the original felt a bit too stagy and claustrophobic, Schmucks is on a sugar rush and never stops for a second. Which is also its main flaw, but we'll get to that. In terms of the cast, this is as good as a comedy of that type can hope for: Rudd, Galifianakis, Carell, Clement, Walliams... Everyone has a ball and everyone does a gre