We here at Gorgon Reviews believe in tradition. It is tradition that puts a review out every weekday, that keeps the chuckles coming, and forces me up late at night to write long lengthy pieces.
That’s right. Another Milestone Review. This time the magical number is 1600. And I didn’t have to look long. My last Milestone Review was The Love Guru, a truly unfunny film that killed Mike Myers‘ career and wasn’t accurate to the wonderful sport of Hockey.
But Myers used to have a buddy. A comprade, a friend, also from SNL. Dana Carvey. He played small roles mostly, never really famous, but he did make his own big flop. One that, basically, also killed his career. No longer could these dude’s just party on, they reached a point where people didn’t want to see them anymore.
And for Carvey, that point was apparently reached in 2003 with the release of The Master of Disguise. A film so hated and talked down upon on the internet, that I imagined there could be no way it was that bad. It was probably just jerks who didn’t even see it and hated the trailer. It is cool to hate on movies in a crowd, after all.
I needed to give The Master of Disguise a chance. It is important, for poor old Carvey’s sake.
I just have to remember that it came out in 2002 when jokes like these might have been funny.
Our story begins in 1979, where we learn about the Disguisey family. They are an Italian family who have learned to harness the power of disguise. Not just putting on a costume and changing your voice, but almost fully becoming a new person. They have used this power for good and to protect the world from bad people. Never anything super dangerous, just common criminals.
Which is why we see Bo Derek running from armed criminals. Bo Derek?! No, just kidding. It is actually Fabbrizio Disguisey (James Brolin) in disguise as Bo Derek. With his help, a criminal, Devlin Bowman (Brent Spiner) gets arrested. He ran a smuggling ring and thus he had to be stopped.
The life of a Disguisey is very dangerous, but it is a calling they feel in their blood. Despite this, Fabbrizio decides to not tell his young son of these gifts and responsibilities, to protect him from a hard future. And he isn’t all the way there in the head.
This isn’t even part of a disguise. For him, this is just Tuesday.
Now, 23 years later, Fabbrizio is presumably retired from the game and just running an Italian restaurant in unnamed Italian family. He has a wife (Edie McClurg), with the name of Mother Disguisey, and a awkward, nerdy son who is a waiter at the restaurant. Now, poor Pistachio, he has the urge to be a true Disguisey without knowing what that means. So instead he spends a lot of his time dressing up in his room and mimicking guests with unique voices.
These are not good traits for a waiter, but damn it, Fabbrizio loves his son. Pistachio thinks he has finally hit it off with a lovely big reared lady, Sophia (Maria Canals-Barrera), but she is actually into another waiter.
But Pistachio is still a good guy. He is nice to kids. Like little Brave Barney Baker (Austin Wolff), who hurts himself skateboarding outside the shop. To make him feel better, Pistachio lets him play with his dog, The Cuteness, whenever he wants.
And that is his mom! We will get to her eventually.
Moving right along, PISTACHIO’S PARENTS GET CAPTURED! Oh no! People break into their home and take them away and he has no idea who did it. He tries to call the police, but he sounds so ridiculous they assume it is a prank! That is when his grandfather shows up, Grandfather Disguisey (Harold Gould), to help him out. Pistachio didn’t know he existed because his dad kept him away. Grandfather realizes he needs to teach Pistachio to become a Master of Disguise, to save his parents. And no, Grandfather cannot do it for him.
Grandfather has to teach Pistachio the power of Energico, a mysterious force that only the Disguisey’s can access. By repeating some lines and focusing hard, they can truly become another person, learning skills they never knew before, or languages, or just general knowledge. It is the most important part of the disguise.
And sure, Pistachio needs an assistant too. After a long search, they find Jennifer Barker (Jennifer Esposito), Barney’s mom. She needs money and likes the fact that there is health insurance, but doesn’t understand her responsibilities. They reluctantly pick her, despite her small butt.
Turtle’s are only into butts that remind them of their mother.
Guess who kidnapped the parents? Of course, it was Devlin Bowman, out of prison after 22 years or so, and looking just as young and as fly as ever.
He has nefarious designs for them. Well not really. He is forcing Fabbrizio to use his Disguisey powers to help him steal priceless treasure from around the world. And that is about it. You know, the Constitution, Liberty Bell, things like that. In order to get him to comply, he has locked away the wife and given her drugs to make her think she is just constantly preparing dinner. But if he refuses to act, he will have her killed!
At the scene of the kidnapping, Jennifer finds a use cigar belonging to The Turtle Club, a members only rich thing in their city. Of course, Pistachio takes this name literally and tries to be the Turtle-ist person he can be. Turtle-ist de Turtle de Derp. This is the scene you can remember from the trailers. Despite Pistachio’s best efforts, they are still able to get inside. Apparently the cigar is super custom made and belonged to a Devlin Bowman. Thanks Turtle Club!
Well isn’t that special.
The duo decide to look for Bowman at a local antique fair in the city, because everyone knows that Bowman loves antiques. Pistachio dresses up like a sex crazed old lady to seduce Bowman (see above, not actually the Church Lady but close enough), and well, it doesn’t work. However, he does take a liking to Jennifer, and invites her over to a party later at his house.
And hey, that is in the job detail. She has to do it. There at the party, Pistachio is now dressed up like a pseudo-Scarface character who likes to party. Because reasons. He uses this character to distract Bowman, while Jennifer goes into his house and looks for clues.
She doesn’t find much, but what she does find is pictures that will help give the whereabouts of Fabbrizio, somehow. I honestly have no idea how that part works.
Pistachio continues to be very annoying, so Bowman sends his henchmen after Pistachio. He escapes by dressing up like a Jaws parody person on a boat and also as grass, complete with cow shit.
Carvey goes into water. Disguises in the water.
For whatever reason, Jennifer is now trapped at Bowman’s house and needs rescuing. But not in a daring way, just an excuse to leave. None of this makes sense, but Pistachio does two different disguises to get her out, changing after he is let in the lobby and no one seems to care. Despite “Rescuing” her, Bowman sends his goons to follow them.
Later, the pair look at the pictures and figure out all of Bowman’s plan, including where his items are being held! Hooray! They also run into Trent (Mark Devine), her boyfriend, on a date with another woman. Oh no! Pistachio uses his magical Slapping powers to take him down, and he is a big hero, slapping a would be cheater dick guy.
When Pistachio drops Jennifer off at her house, he gets a kiss and he is smitten. Despite that, after leaving, the goons decide to kidnap Jennifer and take her hostage. Why her, not Pistachio? Why did they wait so long? Why did he just not keep her when she was at the house? The world will never know.
Either way, thanks to hologram technology, Pistachio figures out a plan and sneaks into the house as a cherry pie.
Okay okay, I will admit, this part was pretty unexpected.
Pistachio, basically the best thing ever now, is able to defeat Bowman’s Ninja army with ease. But Bowman has one more plan. He has brainwashed Fabbrizio! Now Fabbrizio is wearing a Bowman outfit and thinks he is actually Bowman. So the real Bowman escapes with the U.S. Constitution, while Pistachio has to get his father back into his own mind.
And you know, he does that. Hooray! So the return all the artifacts, Pistachio is a master now, and he marries Jennifer. Man, that was quick.
Oh but Bowman got away. They find him in Coasta Rica, so Pistachio dresses up as George W. Bush to get the document back and Bowman is to be locked away!
And then there are about ten minutes of credits, full of bloopers, and other outfits that didn’t make it into the final showing for whatever reason. And after the credits is a 90 second or two minute scene, where Pistachio finds out that a midget was in the Slap Dummy apparatus the whole time. And he is dressed like Mario! Shenanigans! Also The Cuteness, the dog, was the grandfather the whole time.
Did you catch all of those last minute post credit plot twists?!
The Master of Disguise is rated PG for some mild language and crude humor. Why the low rating? Well, apparently Carvey wanted to make a movie his kids could watch, because everything else he had done was for older kids and adults. And so yeah, he wanted a super family friendly movie. Based on that logic, Carvey seemed to want something full of fart jokes, an extremely simple plot, bad acting, and a waste of time.
First of all, Carvey’s main character accent was terrible. It was consistent, if anything, but the Italian-American accent wasn’t even a great parody, so it is annoying we had to hear that throughout the film. One recurring joke was that Bowman would laugh uncontrollably, because he is so evil, and a fart would ruin it. He had gas, and he had it a lot. The ever recurring fart joke.
Another unfortunate recurring joke involved basically sexual harassment in the work place. Pistachio and the Grandfather constantly talk bad about Jennifer’s butt, asked for her measurements for a make believe uniform, ignore the fact that she has a boyfriend (jerk or not) and assume she will eventually fall for Pistachio. On top of that, the Grandfather basically scowls every time she brings up a question on her pay or dental care, basically stringing this poor single mother along who clearly just wants to provide for her son.
Good family values there.
The humor was incredibly low, most of them revolving around Carvey doing stereotypical impressions. We had a German courier and a British detective out of nowhre, completely minor parts. But the funniest bit was the guy from the final picture, who only appeared in the credits as a deleted scene character. Fuck, he was funny and with a really amusing voice. That not making the final film just made me despise most of the other characters that much more.
Give me fat carnival people who talk like Wally Gator any day of the week. But just don’t give me this movie again.
