A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
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A Fish Called Wanda Movie Review
A Fish Called Wanda is a 1988 heist comedy film directed by Charles Crichton and starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline. It’s a solid, but overrated film.
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“Don’t call me stupid“
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I did like this film, I just didn’t love it. It features the kind of humor I usually am not a fan of, but admittedly I liked this film because there is no denying its well written script and inherent energy in its execution. The movie is consistently entertaining, action packed and filled with amusing scenarios throughout.
I did find its heist elements disappointing as the movie did not focus nearly enough on the heist itself which was problematic as it presented itself as both a heist and a comedy flick. As for the humor, I liked the sex comedy here quite a bit. It was overly loud and theatrical, typical of the eighties, but mostly very strong thanks to a lot of hilarious lines of dialogue and a great Kevin Kline character.
Yes, Otto is such a memorable character. He’s so funny, he has a lot of memorable catchphrases and his relationship with Wanda is so well established. I found Kevin Kline’s performance pretty good, but at times I could see that the acting behind it so his Oscar nomination is quite underserved in my opinion.
Jamie Lee Curtis is better in my book as she gave here one of her finest, career defining performances in a very fun, likable role. Ken is so annoying and I really dislike making fun of stutterers which this film did a lot. And of course Archie is not my cup of tea even though John Cleese did give a good performance.
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I am of course talking about the cultural humor which is overly abundant in this movie which relies so much on making fun of British people’s stuck-up, gentlemanly nature that it really crumbled with the constant barrage of the same old joke.
A Fish Called Wanda is very well acted across the board and definitely well scripted. But I found the pacing problematic as sometimes it was rushed and sometimes overly extended in some situations and scenes. It’s an energetic, very fun to watch film, but it can be annoying in some sequences.
A Fish Called Wanda is very well scripted, so well acted across the board and it features a couple of very amusing, funny and well executed humorous situations, but the heist elements are lacking and the constant ridicule of British people was overplayed as it was basically the same joke repeated throughout the whole movie.
