Written by: Kerry Ehrin & Zak Penn
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Rupert Everett, Joely Fisher, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mike Hagerty
Rating: [1/5]
Not all stories that have their origin in animation need to find their way to live-action for a laundry list of reasons that should be obvious to everyone. However, if one were to go on this endeavor, then at the very least we need to deliver this reimagination with the base level of competence. Something we very much did not receive in the terrifyingly awful Inspector Gadget, where it runs at barely over an hour and somehow felt like it would never end.
Always wanting to serve as a police officer, John Brown (Matthew Broderick) gets involved in an accident that makes him the prime candidate to be used in an experiment the city’s mayor wants to implement in crafting the ultimate cop who could have different gadgets implanted in him. Surgically enhanced, John now has a special place in the force but not exactly the one he initially thought he would receive.
Watching Inspector Gadget will leave on walking away from the experience wondering who in the world greenlit the project, but also who allowed for this to get released after viewing the final edit thinking they have accomplished something here. Sure, every film made exists as a miracle but this film barely crosses that bar in the next step when accounting for any quality that it simply astounds. Having not seen the animated cartoon that inspired this live-action remake, I can only assume it brought some entertainment to children given they figured it would be worth trying to make this film. However, the final product does nothing to make the case.
In essence, Inspector Gadget works as a more child-friendly Robocop where a man gets reconstructed into the perfect machine for police activity. However, instead of mass weapons being pulled out to deal with danger, our protagonist has a bunch of random gadgets that help in the silliest of ways. The film, of course, does not delve into the horrors and malintentions of a police force utilizing resources for this type of officer or the fact they do this highly invasive operation without obtaining his consent, which sure sounds like a problem. Therefore, we need to go through this nonsense story with nothing really to hold on to other than comedy.
In trying to imbue some level of comedy into the film we have Inspector Gadget trying to figure out all of these new tools at his disposal and ultimately how his dream to become a police officer still has not come true as he is now used more as a public relations tool rather than someone actively doing something in the community. He, of course, in silly ways attempts to be more than asked upon but he mostly gets in the way at first because he barely knows how to use these new gadgets.
Taking on this lead role, we have Matthew Broderick, who despite the talent he has applied to previous works, just did not have what was required to make this role work. Frankly, no actor probably had what it took considering the dreadful screenplay attached to the character along with everything else. He had to deliver some eye-watering lines while also interacting with some terribly animated tools that would appear out of his body leaving him in no man’s land in trying to make anything work with this character. It once again makes me question if the animated program that inspired this film did something better than what this live-action reimagining failed at, seeing as nothing in this worked even in the slightest.
Truly a forgettable and ineptly made film from top to bottom, Inspector Gadget takes all of the introspective and thought-provoking elements of Robocop and turns it into an attempt to utilize limp comedy through a child-friendly filter to find success. Unfortunately, none of it gets found here as we have the unfortunate combination of a story that does not work, CGI that looks dated the day this feature saw its release, and a cast that was left to drown with incredibly subpar material. It asks the bigger question of why kids would like something like this, but then I would have to hold a mirror up to my face and show as one of the culprits in my younger years.
Films with Josh 
