Dudley Do-Right

Despite the wonderful animated credit sequence that nostalgically recreates the opening of the original Jay Ward cartoons, this live-action misstep is a particular disappointment after the sleeper hit George of the Jungle. Brendan Fraser simply does not embody the curly-locked, cleft-chinned hero, Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties. He doesn't even do the voice. For that matter, Sarah Jessica Parker makes for a bland Nell. Alfred Molina fares best as Dudley's arch nemesis Snidely Whiplash, who hatches a scam to turn Semi-Happy Valley into a tourist mecca. In the year of the gross-out comedy, Dudley does right with kinder, gentler humor, but the majority of the jokes couldn't get themselves arrested, and there is often a desperate reliance on increasingly tiresome slapstick. Kudos of sorts, though, for the year's most gratuitous Pokémon reference. An optional purchase. (K. Lee Benson)