THE FLINTSTONES (1994) ** There are plenty of places for hard times and tragedy in the cinematic world, but not in the Flintstones. Please. Rick Moranis can be brilliant, but as the tragic figure Barney Rubble his immense talents are wasted. I can't think of better casting for Fred than John Goodman, but he spends most of the time engaged in corporate sleaze. Did they entirely forget what was appealing about the Stone Age? The cool sets and actors keep things from going too wrong--that and the realization that the good guys are eventually gonna win even though we're getting stuck with a lot of footage of bad ones boring by the definition of their role--but the only wonderful moments are when Elizabeth Taylor and Halle Berry vaingloriously overplay their parts. Liz should get an award for being willing to play a mother-in-law, and Halle turned a contemptible role into a career break. Oddly enough, the only people who seem to be entirely in their element back in the age of dinosaurs are the new wave darling B-52s…meet the new times dressed up as old times pretending to be new times for old times sake. The best of us enjoy being stupid just for the hell of it every once in awhile, but playing sorrow as a leading suit doesn't leave room to play the most appropriate ones. Flintstones with more frustration than laughs.
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