Though the stage musical on which Frank Oz bases his film was itself based on a low-budget Roger Gorman film, he elects to do it as a kind of filmed stage performance, complete with a Supremes-style girl trio - Crystal, Chiffon and Ronette! - acting as a kind of Greek chorus.
Loaded down with the kind of big, stagey musical routines that please theatergoers more than moviegoers, but livens up when Martin puts in his appearances as sadistic biker/dentist Orin Scrivello, particularly his scene with Bill Murray reprising the masochist played in the original film by Jack Nicholson.
Ellen Greene is also tragically adorable as the squeaky put-upon girlfriend dreaming of the perfect nuclear family, plastic furniture and air freshner.
