McHale’s Navy Review

McHale's Navy
Wheeler-dealer Quintin McHale (Arnold) takes time out from; supplying contraband beer and bets on the ubiquitous "game" to the populace of a ramshackle military establishment, to save the world from comedy terrorist Tim Curry.

by Simon Braud |
Published on
Release Date:

01 Jan 1997

Running Time:

108 minutes

Certificate:

PG

Original Title:

McHale’s Navy

Tom Arnold prods his film career further round the U-bend in this tiresome adaptation of another old TV series. Retired Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale spends his days puttering around the Caribbean in the old PT-73 selling homebrew, ice cream, and swimsuit calendars.

He's brought out of retirement when his old nemesis turned the second best terrorist in the world, Major Vladikov, takes over the island of San Moreno and starts building a nuclear launch silo on it. With help from his old crew and hindrances from Captain Wallace B. Binghampton, who sank a cruise liner a while back, McHale tries to put Vladikov out of business.

Everyone performs badly in this (even cult hero Bruce Campbell who can usually perk up even the most mundane of scripts) they don't want to be there and are all just there to take the pay check. The script is non-existent and the plot inanely cliched.

If this doesn't trample on cherished memories with quite the temerity of Steve Martin's Bilko fiasco, that is simply because no one has any.

A damp squib of a movie.
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