Brenda Starr (1992)

Excellent but underrated film

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Brenda StarrFemale journalists in the 1940s we only allowed to cover soft news, like, who designed J. Edgar Hoover's ball gown?Except for the spunky stringer in this action movie, that is.An artist inserts himself into his own comic strip when his ace reporter character Brenda Starr (Brooke Shields) threatens to leave the series.Through an avatar (Timothy Dalton) the artist is allowed to enter the Amazonian rainforest alongside the intrepid newshawk as she searches for a scientist with a secret formula being sought by an enemy spy (Jeffrey Tambor) and Brenda's long-time adversary Libby Lipscomb (Diana Scarwid).Despite being a forerunner of the early-1990s comic-strip movie craze, this 1989 adaptation of the long-running daily is often overlooked. But rest assured, it's as poorly acted, horribly scripted and as campy as all the others of the short-lived sub-genre.Unfortunately, nowadays, Brenda's jungle adventure would be reduced to a travel blog. Red Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

i seriously cant believe the script for this was even green lit and actually filmed, what a strange movie to make. I get that because it was a comic movie maybe they didn't know how to handle it... But There were Other movies based on comics before this one and those movies did a better job. So I really do not understand why they went with the way they did. The movie started off really strong actually, we get to meet the character of Brenda Starr and we get to see her world (Which I loved) I actually loved the city a lot. But like many people have said before, once they leave the city the movie becomes a mess. The movie felt hard to follow at times and some of the characters were really cheesy. The movie felt really boring. This could have been amazing if it was done in a more serious manner.

Witless adaptation of a comic-strip revolving around the titular female crime reporter (which had previously been the source of a 1976 TV movie with Jill St. John); Brooke Shields looks good throughout but seems undecided whether to approach the role straight, or else play it for laughs! Indeed, this dilemma afflicts the entire production to its ultimate detriment – with the result that the film was shelved for some three years (it was, in fact, shot in 1986 i.e. prior to co-star Timothy Dalton's brief stint as James Bond)! At least, the latter seems to have had a good time making it for he subsequently tackled the part of the villain in another comic-strip adaptation with, again, some powerful gizmo as the object of contention between various factions (and nationalities) – namely ROCKETEER (1991; which I watched a day previously and found to be vastly superior)! Dalton's character here is actually enigmatic – dashing in spite of an eye-patch, he always turns up at unexpected moments to save, guide or otherwise romance the heroine.The chief villains are a gang of incompetent Russian agents (including a bald-headed goofball and the pint-sized cigar-smoking female leader), though also hindering Shields is the ambitious and vaguely vampish rival reporter played by Diana Scarwid. Incidentally, the plot involves a fantasy framework in which animator Tony Peck inhabits the world of his subject (they keep quarrelling about how he isn't fit to design Brenda's exploits because he continually looks down on her, something of which the film-makers themselves are guilty!) – this doesn't really work and is actually rather pointless.I was surprised to learn that renowned veteran cinematographer Freddie Francis (a beloved minor genre director in his own right) was behind this one in the former capacity; his craftsmanship at least renders the silly and positively dreary goings-on (which relocates to Brazil during the second half) pleasing to the eye. A number of guest appearances (including Eddie Albert as the Police Commissioner, Charles Durning as Starr's flamboyant boss, Henry Gibson as the obligatory eccentric scientist and Ed Nelson as the piano-playing American President) add nothing of substance to the film.

She would cash in on her looks. Her acting ability has finally reared its head with Suddenly Susan, but prior to her stint on TV Brooke Shields did a number of lack luster appearances films that were shot as A-quality pictures, but suffered from her poor acting ability."Brenda Starr" shows a turning point in Brooke's acting career, largely because it seemed as though she actually projected herself into the Brenda Starr character, verse reciting lines in her previous roles.Even so the film is poorly directed, and veterans like Dalton and Scarwid cannot prop up a film that has a definate lack of vision. In fact the best sequences of the entire film are in Act I; from Shields braving a ledge to get an interview with an Irish immigrant gangster, to her welcome home to the office by the Brenda Starr comic strip's supporting characters.The film was given a kind of feminine sense of adventure, which I believe detracts from what could've been a far more entertaining film; had the director just followed his personal instincts and created a good adventure film. The high points are seeing Brooke herself in very alluring fashions of the late forties. Beyond that there's not much here. Brooke looks the part, but couldn't act it ... at least not then.