THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES (1993) *1/2 As immigrants from the Appalachians the hillbillies are surrounded by a 50-man SWAT team as soon as they set foot in Beverly Hills, but that's where the reality ends. Where the tv show was warm and wittily sentimental, the film is mundane and formulaic. We know these characters too well to fall for any of these portrayals. Only Cloris Leachman even hints at the glory of the originals, as Granny. Jim Varney is oddly unamusing, though he paradoxically strikes quite the figure of dignified redneck stoicism as Jed. His portrayal only hints at his own apparent versatility, a quantity sadly under-exploited by the cinematic powers that be. As a comedy it's not very funny, and as social satire it's not very illuminating. As mindless entertainment it's competitive with some video games. You can't complain about the well considered country music selections (including a cameo by Dolly Parton), but the Beverly Hillbillies were never meant to be anything nearly so dreary as a 90 minute music video. Buddy Ebsen is in it but he's lowering himself, Lily Tomlin has way too much going on to be Ms. Hathway, and Lea Thompson was better in Howard the Duck. I was irritated when they didn't play the tv theme song during the opening credits, but once I'd seen what they had done I was outraged when they played it at the end.
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