Foam Rhinos Must Die!

RoughCut section edited by Simon Crook

Total Film magazine, May 2001

It's Williams Vs. Norton in nasty new DeVito comedy

Rejoice! After giving moviegoers the wailing grizzle-spats with the likes of schmaltzy onion-peelers Bicentennial Man and Jakob the Liar, Robin Williams has smacked the botty of his inner-child and is staging a belated but oh-so-necessary return to what he does best: making people laugh. The movie? Death to Smoochy. The director? Danny DeVito. The premise? A spiteflecked doozy.

Appealing to all those who've ever wanted to give Barney The Dinosaur a well-aimed hoof in the purple danglies, the Adam Resnick-scripted comedy narrows it's eyes and flashes a flinty glare at the backstabbing world of children's television. Playing it sour and cracked, Williams stars as Rainbow Randolph, a former favourite kids' TV host who gets kicked off his own show and finds his role usurped by a giant purple rhino answering to the name of Smoochy.

As Smoochy's ratings soar, Randolph finds his vision impaired by jealousy-goggles and hurls all his considerable energies into a campaign to assassinate The Man In The Suit.

As The Simpsons has proved with cackling bastard Krusty the Clown, if you approach it at the right angle, children's telly can provide an orchard-full of bruised fruit screaming out to be spoofed. Just a quick glace at Edward Norton gurning from Smoochy's Barney-esque foam-suit suggests director DeVito's on the right track (if you think he looks stupid, wait until you see his dwarf-goon sidekicks The Rhinettes).

And Mr Williams' freshly punched-in face? Well, on the day we snapped him on location in New York he was shooting a scene in which his character unleashed his Smoochy-flavoured anger on an unwitting Save The Black Rhino charity collector - and gets seven shades fisted out of him. It'll be black, it'll be bitter, it'll feature grown men having fights in stupid rhino costumed. But will it be funny? For the sake of Williams' comedy comeback, we can bloody well hope so, but you can find out for yourself when Death to Smoochy is released early 2002.

Death to Smoochy Main Page

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