A Fish Called Wanda - 2-Disc Collector's Edition (DVD-Video)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: A Film: B+
Adeptly blending
British and American humor, A Fish
Called Wanda became the sleeper hit of the summer of 1988, and still holds
the record (since 1982) for taking the longest amount of time (10
weeks) for a film to reach No. 1 at the American box office --
definitely the sign of a word-of-mouth success.
The
brainchild of former Monty Python member John Cleese (he co-conceived the
story, wrote the screenplay and was an uncredited co-director), Wanda seemed daring for a mainstream
comedy at the time due to its twisted sense of humor involving things
like stuttering and cruelty to animals. Today, however, it seems much
tamer -- though no less funny -- after nearly a decade's
worth of increasingly raunchy gross-out comedies that came in the wake of There's Something About Mary (1998).
A Fish Called Wanda is an inspired bit of lunacy
about the fallout among jewel thieves (two Americans and two Englishmen)
after a multi-million-pound heist in London. Wanda (Jamie Lee
Curtis) is the scheming vixen who uses overt sexuality to manipulate
her three male partners, all of whom are putty in her cleavage.
Among
her accomplices are Kevin Kline, who won that
year's Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his lunatic performance
as Otto, a dim-witted former CIA operative who thinks he's
an intellectual genius; Cleese's fellow Monty Python alum Michael
Palin is Ken, a stuttering animal-rights activist with a
beloved pet fish also named Wanda; and Cleese himself is hilarious as
Archie Leach, a barrister whose proper Englishman facade takes a beating once
he becomes smitten with Wanda.
Thanks to
the keen comic sensibilities of Cleese and 77-year-old director Charles Crichton
(best remembered for Ealing Studios comedies such as 1951's The Lavender Hill Mob), this
fish is swimming with laugh-out-loud moments.
The
same group of actors and much of the same crew (minus
Crichton) would later reunite to much lesser effect for the
disappointingly lame Fierce Creatures
(1997).
Fox/MGM's
2-disc collector's edition of A Fish
Called Wanda presents the film in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with 5.1
Dolby Digital mix. The numerous extras include an entertaining audio
commentary by Cleese, over 25 minutes of deleted and alternate scenes
and a new retrospective documentary.
- Chuck O’Leary