Spy Hard (1996)

RELEASED IN 1996 and directed by Rick Friedberg, "Spy Hard" is a spoof of James Bond flicks with Leslie Nielsen as Agent WD-40 and Nicollette Sheridan as Agent 3.14. Stephanie Romanov plays a dual role while Marcia Gay Harden is on hand as the agent's dubious secretary. Andy Griffith plays the main heavy. The first 15 minutes are hilarious, but from there the movie settles down into quietly amusing. The tone is akin to The Naked Gun franchise with its silly humor. The movie coulda done better on the female front, but Sheridan is likable and Harden has a couple worthy scenes. Additional movies are spoofed, like "Pulp Fiction." Overall, it's a throwaway comedy, but it has its goofy charm. THE FILM RUNS 81 minutes and was shot in Los Angeles and Burbank. WRITERS: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer, Dick Chudnow & Friedberg. GRADE: B

First:Sorry about my bad English,i'm not American! If you know Leslie Nielsen's previous spoof/comedy films,you could expect something very funny this time,but,that's not what you get,instead,we get a movie that tries as much as it can to be like "airplane",and mainly "naked gun".It's pretty clear that this movie writers were influenced by the ZAZ team.But,they sure don't know how to handle the style of humor that may had seemed easy on their minds.We do receive nonsense,double-sense,jokes a second and other characteristics that made movies like "Naked Gun","Airplane" and "hot shots!" so great,but,in this one all of these characteristics had been used out of context and not well-used as the movies mentioned. Sure,this film has great jokes,some even clever,but all of them are in the trailer,so,my tip for you is watch the trailer,then watch this movie online till the great opening with "weird" Al,you will see all you need

If the names Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer don't ring a bell, perhaps their directorial efforts for films such as Vampires Suck, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans, Epic Movie and Date Movie may be more familiar with just how consistently bad they were, following a rote formula of making fun of genre film franchises that somehow wasn't really funny, with more misses than hits with their gags. That formula also states to chalk up a long list of impersonators and to lampoon everything that's pop culture at the moment, and to string a series of bad gags to make up what's essentially some semblance of a story, not.But it wasn't all that bad to begin with. Early in their career they're responsible for writing the Scary Movie franchise, and made their debut with writing Spy Hard, a film that starred the late Leslie Nielsen, and I suppose back then there was enough budget for the filmmakers to hire bona fide stars such as Ray Charles, Hulk Hogan, the male model Fabio, Mr T and even the late Pat Morita of Karate Kid's Mr Miyagi fame, before the flops spell out the hiring of impersonators (no offense to the profession) since I would believe the stars wouldn't want to go touch these productions with a ten foot pole given a regressing track record.I've always associated Leslie Nielsen with his better known Naked Gun series, and while his brand of comedy had gone beyond detective Frank Drebin, somehow Nielsen is quite the enigma, and becomes a character in his own right no matter what role he gets to play. Cue the signature blank stares, the innuendos and the physical slapstick comedy that he's perfected, that you'll know you're in for a hoot no matter how bad the story is. Here his Agent WD-40 aka Dick Steele (OK, so here's the cat out of the bag for friends who wonder why "Dick Steel" was a handle I used - dropping the last "e" in Steele for more "bite" during my online gaming days) is the quintessential spoof-Bond, with mysterious charisma and suave to win over the femme fatales, and gets the job done with questionable, unorthodox methods.Yes, I suppose one of the easiest way to spoof a film or a franchise is to set the sights on James Bond. After all, we have Johnny English and Austin Powers to come after this, so there's plenty of room actually for more of such wannabes who have their equivalent of a theme song, here performed in hilarious fashion and easily one of the best sequences here with a Weird Al Yankovic contribution full of inane lyrics, and keep a close eye on those gyrating silhouettes!Like all "comedic" films by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer to follow this, Spy Hard is the precursor to their idea that comedy stems from poking fun at the box office successes of the time, and in the mid 90s, we get spoofs here from films such as Jan de Bont's Speed, Spielberg's Jurassic Park, Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Cameron's True Lies, Wolfgang Petersen's In the Line of Fire and even Sister Act which allowed for some nuns with guns moments. While it's part of the fun spotting, or rather identify all the blatant spoof attempts, this soon wears out their welcome and like their follow up films, it seems that lessons aren't learnt from spoof fatigue. Simply put the story here dwells on Agent WD-40 stopping his arch nemesis General Rancor (Andy Griffith, or TV's Matlock), but its relentless buffoonery didn't quite survive past the halfway mark where jokes consistently fell flat and were unfunny.Still, the best thing about the film is to watch Leslie Nielsen at his element with yet another Nielsen-isque performance, and for fans around the world, he will definitely be missed as one of the unlikeliest comedians of our generation. Rest in peace, and thank you for the memories.

Spy Hard is a decent film with an enjoyable but in no way memorable or original,with a good comedic cast.The movie is nothing spectacular and it is easily forgetful,but Leslie Nielsen certainly makes it a lot better,the character was clearly written for him,he was very similar to Frank Drebin from the Naked Gun movies,but certainly didn't have dialogue that was as funny as Drebin has.My favourite part was definitely Weird Al Yankovic's song about the movie in the opening and ending credits,they were both the funniest and the most enjoyable.Its certainly nothing hilarious or an outstanding comedy,but if your a fan of Leslie Nielsen you myth want to watch it just for his sake.Secret agent Dick Steele (Leslie Nielsen) is given a mission to stop General Rancor (Andy Griffith) from destroying the world with a deadly missile.