DICK TRACY (1990) ** I can almost see how, surrounded by brilliant conversationalists on the deck at Alice's Restaurant, with the champagne vintage getting older and older and the sun going down, this might have seemed like a good idea to Warren Beatty. When you assemble an all-star cast of historic proportions to do a movie about a comic strip, and they all fit their performances comfortably within' the confines of comic strip characters, how triumphant is that? Madonna, who has spent nearly her entire career as a cartoon of some sort or another, would seem fool-proof casting for such a thing, but typecast in nearly comprehensive part she opts for trying to be Marilyn Monroe instead. That Madonna is bright, as was Marilyn, is beyond question; that she lacks Marilyn's innate elegance is also the case. Cinematicians, historians, and hip people of every stripe will forever rue this strange and singular pairing of Beatty and Al Pacino, and wonder why. Answer: because at least one of them wanted it that way. Pacino outplays Warren without question, bubbling beyond the confines of his role in the way that was expected of him but would be beyond the reach of the talents typically available for such undertakings. Warren keeps a leash on himself as the dick terribly concerned about limiting his actions to the confines of orphanage bureacratic regulatory edicts, but contemptuous to due process concerns; a bit of him finally breaks out in the closing scene, but even then he intentionally chooses to play a cartoon of himself, rather than Tracy. The sets are good, at least fun, there's no doubt a long-winded masters thesis in honour of the whole thing, but not from me. Woulda been a great break-in role for Steve Garvey.