‘Mchale’s Navy’ Awash With Adolescent Humor

Although it comes under the crowded category of Why Did They Bother, “McHale’s Navy” does offer an example of a movie that tries to be all things to all people. As long as they’re 13 and male.

It has, and I mean it, everything: Adolescent comedy. Numerous massive explosions. A terrorist subplot. White male patriarchy. Loud Hawaiian shirts. And let’s not forget name recognition, even if the TV series ran only from 1962-65 and was largely forgettable. Inspired by “Sgt. Bilko” and the precursor of “F Troop” (1965-67), it starred Ernest Borgnine as a Navy commander chasing both Japanese ships and whatever illicit profits he and his cohorts could make in the Pacfiic Theater of World War II.

A lot has changed in McHale’s Navy. For one thing, McHale’s not in the Navy. Played by the occasionally amusing Tom Arnold as a guy lost somewhere between Animal House and Donovan’s Reef, McHale makes his money selling beer, ice cream and girlie calendars (no nudes, because this is a family film, which is why there are so many explosions) to the real Navy personnel (real, of course, being relative) and living the life of ease on his own private island.

All of which comes to a screeching halt when Capt. Binghampton (Dean Stockwell) arrives to shake things up a la Queeg, and terrorist Tim Curry makes things hot for McHale’s personal village-full of locals. Curry, playing one more goateed villain, is the Russian Vladakov.

The cast is generally as nondescript as the original, although Bruce Campbell (star of Sam Raimi’s classic “Army of Darkness”), who plays Virgil, is the focal point of the movie’s funniest scene, a bar fight in Havana.

xxxx
Locations: East Sprague, Newport and Showboat cinemas Credits: starring Tom Arnold, Dean Stockwell, Debra Messing, David Alan Grier, Bruce Campbell Running time: 1:49 Rating: PG