THE NEW SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON (1998) * You won't have long to ponder how anything could be predicated upon such an absurd premise (the family is tricked into smuggling loot out of Hong Kong, but attacked by the trickers before they can do the more difficult smuggling in to Australia). You won't have time to ponder that predication because any rational sensibilities that you maintain will be attacked at approximately 10 second intervals throughout the entire film. I'm not saying that it doesn't make sense per sé, I'm saying that it's too ridiculous for belief, and too stupid to be intentional. John Mallory Asher is the most neomaxiezoondweebie excuse for surfer alignment that I've ever seen, and the film's only redeeming scene involves an orangutan knocking him out. James Keach so rarely attains anything in any way relating to the level of machismo endowed by the script that it's not at all surprising to see him running about through the jungle with his shirt tucked in, or swimming in boots. There's absolutely no reason to believe that such a goofus could ever marry Jane Seymour, but then reality sets in, perhaps because efforts at cinematic fabrication remain so unremittingly ineffective. The only authentic thing involved in any of it is that you know, you just know, that at some point Jane is going to assume her proper role as "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," and at that point everyone can go home because...not that they've run out of ideas so much as they've admitted that they've run out of ideas. David Carradine should have helped 'em out with some "Kung Fu" stuff, then Dr. Quinn could have called in the indians to her defense and Keach could have called in some of his brother's friends from prison. No, really, I mean, there's so much gratuitous violence posing as "action" that they might as well have made it entertaining.
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