The Master of Disguise Movie Review:


The Master of Disguise is former Saturday Night Live star Dana Carvey's attempt at a movie comeback. Carvey throws many of his creations of his craft into this truly dim-witted comedy. The film's target audience is families looking for laughs, but the result is a terrible comedy that shoots for laugh out loud moments, but hardly stirs a chuckle.

The somewhat plot of the film is centered on family, in fact one family really called the Disguises. They are a family that are each blessed with the gift of creating great disguises to help save the world. The film opens with Frabbrizio (Brolin) saving the world from a ruthless villain named Bowman (Spiner). After his dramatic escape, Frabbrizio then decides to quit being a master of disguise and to keep the family secret away from his only son Pistachio (Carvey). Twenty-five years later, the villain Bowman is back and he kidnaps Pistachio's father and mother. In steps Pistachio's grandfather (Gould), who tells him of the family secret and trains him to be a master of disguise. A female lead named Jennifer (Esposito) is attached as Pistachio's sidekick to help him execute his disguises and save his mother and father.

The direction by Perry Andelin Blake and the script by Dana Carvey and Harris Goldberg just never hit on any cylinders. The film misses at almost every turn. Carvey's comedic gift of transforming himself into characters is noticeable, but becomes tiresome quickly. Through the course of the film he turns into a turtle man, Tony Montana from Scarface (1983), Robert Shaw's character from Jaws (1975), and a cherry pie. It actually seemed that Carvey just decided on what characters he wanted to play, and wrote them into his script. He created wonders with his characters and skits through his years on Saturday Night Live, maybe Carvey should have written a full-length script about just one of his characters from the show. An example would be a feature film of the church lady.

Carvey is a straightforward comedy man, and his abilities are admirable. However, I found him unleveled for the most part of this film, especially as the annoying character Pistachio. James Brolin and Harold Gould attempt to make impressions as Pistachio's counterparts, but both somewhat over do it. Star Trek's Brent Spiner overdoes his role as well, but he actually delivers the few mire giggles of the film.

The Master of Disguise is a bad comedy that reflects having no idea of where it is going. The film seems just thrown together at the last minute by Carvey and the producers. I recommend checking out a much better Dana Carvey film called Opportunity Knocks (1990), before going to see this one.

Report Card Grade: D-

Joseph Tucker

Site Contents Copyright© The Z Review, unless used with permission.This site has no intention to infringe on the rights of the film owners of The Master of Disguise and intellectual copyright holders of the movies mentioned herein & hold copyright over the movie, characters, merchandise & storyline.