Eye Candy #543 - "Spy Hard"

Spy Hard:  I’m writing this review, not because this film is actually worthy of any more of my time, but because I have seldom seen a film so bad.  Leslie Nielsen just didn’t know when not to spoof.  Sure, he gave us “Airplane” and “The Naked Gun”, but he also gave us “Spy Hard”, a woefully pootacular spy spoof.  Nielsen is Dick Steele (get it?), Agent WD-40 (get it?), who is called back into service to fight his old enemy General Rancor (get it?) played by Andy Griffith and save the life of the daugher of an old friend.  Charles Durning, Marcia Gay Harden, Barry Bostwick, and Nicolette Sheridan are all here in support (none of them apparently having read this “script” beforehand), with various obligatory, pointless celebrity cameos like Hulk Hogan, Joyce Brothers, Julie Brown, Mr. T, Ray Charles, Fabio, and Alex Trebek, amongst others (Pat Morita has the only funny bit as Brian, the gay waiter).  Jokes misfire left, right, and center.  In fact, I would argue that there isn’t one genuine laugh in the whole picture.   And the film hasn’t aged well as most of its references are about early 90’s movies like “Pulp Fiction” and “Sister Act“.  Also of note is the director Rick Friedberg who is, you guessed it, father of one of the current purveyors of schlock spoofs, Jason Friedberg (he of the various “_________ Movie” movies, none of which are any good).  Friedberg the Younger and his current partner in hooey, Aaron Seltzer, both contributed to “Spy Hard’s” screenplay, too.  So perhaps bad filmmaking is genetic after all.  Woodchuck sez, “Completely worthless.”