Memorable, crazy movie

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

This dreadful comedy has two of Barry Humphries characters get up to 'comic' japes somewhere in the Middle East. These comedy creations are of course Les Patterson the drunken diplomat and Dame Edna Everage. To be honest I find Les Patterson's boozy antics about as funny as a punch to the throat. He is a pretty disgusting character. And not in a good way. While the film in general is a toilet humour connoisseur's delight. Its story involves some sort of awful virus that is being spread over the world by villains by way of contaminated toilet seats. Witless gag after witless gag is rolled out before our eyes mercilessly. This is a film that makes the Police Academy movies seem sophisticated multi-layered complex works by comparison. I cannot recommend this rubbish.

NOT "great art" by ANY means, but for belly laughs and a good time this is a movie worth picking up - Barry Humphries is hysterical anyway, and his Dame Edna character is just the icing on the cake.... politically incorrect? You betcha! Rude and sophomoric? Yes and yes again. Completely worth the time it takes to see it and (then) the bucks it costs to get a copy of your own for keeps? Absolutely! Australians have had Humphries in ALL his different guises to enjoy forever, but the Dame is the only one that got any serious exposure over here.... which I believe is fortuitous. This movie probably could've been made WITHOUT the scenes where folks covered in boils explode and all but dissolve, but then it'd just have been a "pleasure", and not a "guilty pleasure" (the very best kind). Omar Shariff did more than sit through it, he STARRED in it!

The scene in the revolving restaurant of the Sydney Tower comes a full ten years after The Goodies did it in the "Alternative Roots" episode (1977). Graeme Tim and Bill (in their ancestral guises of Celtic Kilty, County Cutie and Kinda Kinky) have been kidnapped by an unscrupulous tour leader who is taking them on a whirlwind tourist tour of London. He forces them up to the revolving restaurant of the Post Office tower (the same one that Twinkle the giant kitten famously toppled). The restaurant spins faster and faster until all the diners are stuck to the windows via centrifugal force. This scene is of course considerably shorter and less expensive than the one set in the Sydney Tower in Les Patterson Saves the World, but no doubt both sequences derive from a universal and visceral mistrust of revolving restaurants.

This is the rare merciful Australian comedy that doesn't star Paul Hogan or Yahoo Serious. Instead, it stars Barry Humphries, who was wonderful as Bert the game show host in the overlooked classic "Shock Treatment". This movie, however, is not a classic. As Australian comedies go, it's pretty embarrassing, and that's saying a lot (as anyone who's seen "Young Einstein" can attest).Humphries plays the titular character, a repugnant, leathery, big toothed, eternally horny drunkard who starts off the movie by farting, which causes a man standing behind him to burst into flames. Usually I'm a big fan of flaming flatulence humor, like The Eternal Flame character in "Freaked", but here it left me cold. Don't get me wrong, the director was obviously passionate about the material, but here it falls flat.Anyhoo, Patterson gets wrapped up in some obscure Middle Eastern plot to spread a virus by planting it on poisoned toilet seats. The virus causes it's victims to mutate into horrible, lumpy-faced monstrosities oozing puss.Speaking of which, it should be noted that Joan Rivers is in this movie. She is one of the most horrifying actresses in show business. From her pointy voice to her hateful fashion views to her plastic face, she frightens me more than an army of Freddy Kreugers. Thank goodness her film credits are small and after her creepy cameo at the end of "Look Who's Talking" the producers had the good sense to replace her with Roseanne in the sequel (actually, that's kind of a lateral move).Anyway, back to this movie. For some reason Dame Edna Everage (also played by Humphries) shows up, and compared to Rivers he/she's a Goddess. This movie has a lot of things going for it- exploding koalas, some animation, a character called Dr. Herpes- but unfortunately it's all tied into Patterson, a revolting character who at no time approached anything even remotely resembling likability. By the time you get to the finale at a revolving restaurant in which another man in drag shows up, you'll be longing for the quiet subtlety of "Reckless Kelly" (a movie I actually like- it's Yahoo Serious' "Laurence of Arabia).