Film Credits

Screenplay by: Darren Star

Directed by: William Dear

Starring: Richard Grieco, Linda Hunt, Roger Rees, Robin Bartlett, Gabrielle Anwar, Geraldine James, Carole Davis, Roger Daltrey

Review

In reality, If Looks Could Kill is a really stupid film, and therefore it must contain some sneaky subliminal messages that somehow convince your brain into enjoying it all. At least, that's the only easy explanation I could come up with to rationalize why I dropped $7.00 to see If Looks Could Kill in a theatre and then turned around and plunk down another $30.00 to buy the disc. If I looked closer, I guess I would have realized that the film was produced by Warner Bros, the same guys who managed to sucker millions of people into thinking that Batman and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves were excellent films.

In any event, if you like good silly films and are in the mood for pure, unadulterated fluff, If Looks Could Kill is definitely for you. The film is a spoof of spy films and stars Richard Grieco (of Booker and 21 Jump Street fame) as high school student Michael Corben, who leaves on a trip to Europe with his school's French Club and is accidentally mistaken for a British/American government superspy. Michael doesn't exactly let his "superiors" know his true identity, and before long he gets a very cool Lotus, a pair of suction-powered sneakers, meets a beautiful girl (Gabrielle Anwar), fights bad guys, and has several encounters with bad James Bond clichés. In fact, the film could have easily been called "James Bond, Jr."

With a film of this caliber, you might guess that the acting in If Looks Could Kill wouldn't be very good, and you would be right. The only real exception is Linda Hunt, who seemingly has a grand time portraying an evil, whip-wielding majordomo. But for such a bad film, it does have an excellent production design and some very nice special effects, and it's so silly and good-natured that you just can't help but enjoy it somehow. Just for the record, director William Dear was the gent responsible for another stupid but good-natured film you may have heard of, Harry and the Hendersons.

As far as the laserdisc goes, If Looks Could Kill is up to the usual high Warner standards. The image is sharp and crisp, and the colors stand out, but some reds have a slight video noise problem. The movie was originally filmed in Spherical Panavision with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and appears cropped on disc. The CX-encoded digital Dolby surround stereo soundtrack is fine. The disc was pressed at Pioneer and features 22 listed chapter markers.