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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
How low can Hollywood go?, June 30, 2005
In my experience, seeing the words "National Lampoon" in any film title is a bad omen, indicating tastelessness and a dearth of actual comedy up ahead. National Lampoon's Gold Diggers manages to take the series to an all-time low - which, sadly, is no mean feat. Will Friedle and Chris Owen act as if they are auditioning for a future installment of Dumb and Dumber, and the plot suffers from a definite "ick" factor - and, sadly, those are actually the movie's strengths.
Calvin (Friedle) and Leonard (Owen) grew up together in an orphanage and are now trying to make their mark on the world as young adults. They certainly don't want to have to work for a living, so they take up a life of petty crime. They are pitiful failures at this and wind up in jail. Then, two old ladies they accosted on the street bail them out and invite them for a visit in their impressive home. The guys (by which I mean Calvin, as he's the only one really capable of actual human thought) think their hosts are rich, and so it is that they devise a plan to marry them, wait for their imminent deaths, and then live large on their inheritances. Doris (Louise Lasser) and Betty Mundt (Renee Taylor) may be heirs to the Mundt prophylactics fortune, but they are in fact cash poor (thanks to their insane uncle, who is in charge of the Mundt estate). They make their own plans to marry the two young men, purchase sizable insurance policies on them, and then kill them. The double wedding takes place, the marriages are consummated (do I hear a Yuck!?), and about a month passes. Calvin finds that married life with buxom, not-dead-yet Doris is driving him insane, so he and Leonard begin setting "accidental" traps for their wives; naturally, the women are finalizing their own murder plans at the same time. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, this ain't - but that goes without saying.
I won't lie and say I didn't laugh or smile a time or two because I did, but National Lampoon's Gold Diggers aims low - really low - and cannot begin to escape the black hole of stupidity upon which it is built. And I think I speak for the vast majority of human beings when I say that we just don't want to see senior citizen women prancing around onscreen like Victoria's Secret models. There's crude and then there's National Lampoon's crude, and Gold Diggers is as crude as it gets. This film should by all rights be a career killer for anyone involved with it - although Nikki Ziering may emerge relatively unscathed given the fact that her screen time is severely limited.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Letdown from National Lampoon, April 22, 2005
This could have been a good movie. The premise was ripe for exploitation and nobody exploits the stupidity of people in general and young people in particular better than National Lampoon. They are the acknowleged masters of the exploitation genere: movies with absolutely no redeeming social value that still leave you laghing. In this case, however, they exploited only their reputation.
The premise is of a couple of young idiots looking for an easy life without work. Hey...it's worked for years. They fail at just about everything including purse snatching and armed robbery. Finally they hit upon a scheme to marry a couple of rich spinsters and wait to collect the inheritance. There is a problem, though, in that the spinsters are hard up for cash as well and conceive of a plot to marry the dumb kids who tried to mug them, insure them heavily and then kill them for the payout. It had so much potential for comedy and it falls flat.
There are a few moments of brief humor but they are far too few and far between. Most of my time was spent agonizing "surely, it will get better". It didn't.
I almost gave this one a single star. What kept me from doing so is that there are a few movies out there that are even worse. Unfortunately, I have seen some of them.
Buy this one if you MUST complete your National Lampoon Collection or if you want something to distract you from the pain of a root canal. Otherwise, don't bother. Even renting is a stretch.
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
IT SUCKS, Part II, April 30, 2005
Sorry I couldn't come up with a better punchline, but this movie doesn't deserve any original thought or ideas. Maybe its because there aren't any original ideas in this movie event. National Lampoon used to mean funny, now its french for crapola. Avoid this one at all costs!!! Watch Caddyshack II, Airplane II, yes even Xanadu three times each before you pick this booger one.
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