Shelley Long had Florence Henderson right there on the set to guide her and Gary Cole certainly had the spirit of Robert Reed channeled to play Mike Brady. The two headed up a cast that really satirized the famous sugary sitcom that Paramount television brought us from 1969 to 1974, The Brady Bunch.
Time has stood still for the family in The Brady Bunch Movie. Gary Cole and Shelley Long have raised their blended family right from the Seventies. The parents and kids listen to the music, dress in the fashion and behave otherwise as if the Eighties and Nineties just never took place. The kids stand out quite a bit from their peers in their suburban school.
The main plot such as it is has the Bradys being under siege by their neighbors, the Dittmyers, Michael McKean and Jean Smart who need the Brady home in order to complete a big real estate deal. They'll get it by fair means or foul. The Dittmyers are best described as poor relations of that other TV family, the Bundys.
A big part of the problem with this film is that you would have to have been a fan of the show and presumably have seen it in reruns a gazillion times on the TVLand channel in order to appreciate it. About 15 of the various episodes are used in creating the plot. That's a component that someone who never saw the show couldn't possibly get.
Still some of the sly innuendo also comes from the Nineties culture with RuPaul as the school guidance counselor eying Christopher Daniel Barnes as Greg and a young lesbian girl carrying a big old torch for Marcia played by Christine Taylor. Jennifer Elise Cox has taken over nicely the role of the ever dissatisfied middle sister Jan who the real and original Carol Brady as the grandmother finally deals with in the appropriate manner.
As in any of the television Brady episodes goodness and vacuity ultimately triumph and to find out how and which episode plot lines are used to bring that about, you'll have to sit back and enjoy the big screen version of America's most famous blended family.
Time has stood still for the family in The Brady Bunch Movie. Gary Cole and Shelley Long have raised their blended family right from the Seventies. The parents and kids listen to the music, dress in the fashion and behave otherwise as if the Eighties and Nineties just never took place. The kids stand out quite a bit from their peers in their suburban school.
The main plot such as it is has the Bradys being under siege by their neighbors, the Dittmyers, Michael McKean and Jean Smart who need the Brady home in order to complete a big real estate deal. They'll get it by fair means or foul. The Dittmyers are best described as poor relations of that other TV family, the Bundys.
A big part of the problem with this film is that you would have to have been a fan of the show and presumably have seen it in reruns a gazillion times on the TVLand channel in order to appreciate it. About 15 of the various episodes are used in creating the plot. That's a component that someone who never saw the show couldn't possibly get.
Still some of the sly innuendo also comes from the Nineties culture with RuPaul as the school guidance counselor eying Christopher Daniel Barnes as Greg and a young lesbian girl carrying a big old torch for Marcia played by Christine Taylor. Jennifer Elise Cox has taken over nicely the role of the ever dissatisfied middle sister Jan who the real and original Carol Brady as the grandmother finally deals with in the appropriate manner.
As in any of the television Brady episodes goodness and vacuity ultimately triumph and to find out how and which episode plot lines are used to bring that about, you'll have to sit back and enjoy the big screen version of America's most famous blended family.