Cheech & Chong's: The Corsican Brothers

Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers (1984) was a re-telling of the famous Alexandre Dumas classic novel. Cheech and Chong new that they had to market their comedy towards a different audience. There hard core fan base wasn't enough to make themselves profitable. Not only did they change their style of humor, they toned it down dramatically. Sadly, no one wanted to see a period piece starring Cheech and Chong. The movie is not horrible but it's not a laugh riot. Not wanting to end the partnership, the duo made another comedy album and a video that went along with it called GET OUT OF MY ROOM. The video was a tad under an hour and it featured the classic comedy song BORN IN EAST L.A. which would become Cheech's stepping stone towards mainstream acceptance.

Recommended for Cheech and Chong fans. Others will want to stay away from it.

I don't want to say that "Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers" has aged well. It hasn't. It's still pretty bad but it does have a few laughs. I did laugh more tonight than I have in the past. What can I say? I'm a fan. But overall, it has a pretty bad groan to laugh ratio. I wish that they would have used some co-writers and maybe a different director. C&C were a good writing/directing team but I think a different perspective would have helped their movie career last a little longer.

In March, 2002, after my parents and I had seen the disturbing - but very well done - "In the Bedroom", we felt like we needed something really light, so we rented "Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers"; I mean, what could be more easygoing than a movie starring filmdom's favorite goof-ball stoners? This one turned out to be probably their lowest movie ever. For starters, no drug humor. It features them as siblings in pre-revolutionary France (despite the fact that they talk like 20th century Americans) making a mess of the status quo. Much of the little humor that the movie provides derives from the fact that if one of them gets injured, the other feels it.

So, this is definitely not the Cheech & Chong movie that I recommend. Their other movies are far better. Also starring Edie McClurg and Rae Dawn Chong, and they probably prefer to omit this from their filmographies.

Cheech and Chong are performing their unique brand of rock music in modern day France when they are approached by a gypsy who reads their past and tells them of their past lives in France. There they were brothers, spurned by their royal parents due to being the spawn of another man. The two grow up to be taken for outlaws and sentenced to death by the King of France. When their beheading becomes a farce, the King pardons them to save face, however for the love of two women they infiltrate the palace by way of cunning surprise.

The running `joke' in this film is that Cheech and Chong are brothers with a bond that means one feels the other's pain. This joke is hammering into the ground ignoring the fact that it isn't even funny the first time! The plot is a shambles that is just an excuse for the duo to monkey around in a different time period. The gags are all very poor - I was in a relaxed silly mood and ready to laugh but I didn't even smile once - I swear to god, not even once!

Some of the gags are so lame that I found my mood just getting lower and lower as I watched. In respect to the film I stuck with it to the bitter end but if I could take back the time I spent watching this I would do it in a flash. Sadly all I can do now is commit my thoughts to this review and hopefully move past this unpleasant chapter in my life. Chong is rubbish here, as are almost all the overacting support cast with absurd makeup and accents! Rae Dawn Chong is really cute in a tiny cameo but it is Cheech Martin who is worth watching if you're in the mood for it. He may not really be very funny here due to the material but at least he plays along with it and seems to be having fun (more than I was at least).

Overall this is just one big waste of time. If you get enjoyment from this film then I salute you because you did much better than me in that regard. Usually I would guess that makers of films this bad must be on drugs or something, but here I assume that the problem was that Chong wasn't high when it came to this film - if he was he might have managed to insert some fun, wit, imagination or enjoyment into the film; as it is he doesn't get any of these in and fills the gap with rubbish instead.

Ridiculously awful, infamous "Cheech and Chong" outing has the so-called "Corsican Brothers" having more fun doing stupid things. I saw this in Britain at about two in the morning, and so it's hard to really remember anything about it (did it even have a plot?), but I did find it very goofy and silly and hard to put a rating on.

Technical value: 0/5 2:00 a.m. fun value: 3/5