‘Candy’ Disappoints
“Brain Candy” is not a bad way to describe the thoughtful sketch comedy of The Kids in the Hall. Neither as nakedly provocative nor as invested with pop-culture attitude as “Saturday Night Live” or “SCTV,” they bring to the small screen (first on HBO, now re-running on Comedy Central) intelligent black-humor sendups of such ordinary things as male bonding, suburban life and teenage giddiness.
The group takes its name from a phrase Jack Benny used - “That’s from the kids in the hall” - to credit jokes from the aspiring comedians lining the corridors of his studio. With its new movie, the Canadian troupe jumps from the fringe into the reductive melting pot of Hollywood movies, creating a mildly interesting comedy product in which the Kids’ pithy humor has been diluted and drained of its essential flavor.
The plot involves a group of industrial chemists (played by Kids Bruce McCulloch in drag, Kevin McDonald and Scott Thompson) who work for a pharmaceutical company eager to cash in on new Glemonex, golf ball-size, fluorescent-blue lozenges that supposedly cure depression.
Actually what Glemonex does is to lock the brain into a permanent state of remembering its happiest moments (a dig at our infatuation with Prozac). In exploring the limits of such a drug, the movie dispenses the only joke with the poignant pull of the Kids’ best TV material: We see Glemonex’s effect on Patient 957, an elderly woman who takes the pill and is stuck on the memory of slaving over a Christmas dinner only to have her family rush through it in three minutes.
The rest of “Brain Candy” - although embedded with feisty and occasionally funny gay humor - is a wan satire on such easy targets as big business, celebrity and what might happen if despondent grunge rockers started taking anti-depressants. One scenario: a music video for a song called “Happiness Pie.” Do we really need it spelled out?
By the time the movie gets to its message (you can’t be happy all the time), you’ll wish you stayed home and tuned into “NewsRadio” (featuring Kid Dave Foley) or “The Larry Sanders Show” (with Kid Scott Thompson). It’s no coincidence that two Kids have found niches on sitcoms, where their talents are used to best effect. “Brain Candy” is a good example of why not everything - even a cult hit - ought to be turned into a movie.
xxxx “Kids In The Hall: Brain Candy” Locations: Newport cinemas Credits: Directed by Kelly Makin; starring David Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson. Running time: 1:29 Rating: R