TV REVIEW : ’50 Ft. Woman’: The Attack Lacks Punch

“Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman” is a fizzling attempt to have a comedic blast with a bomb.

There’s a thin line separating subtlety and apathy, and HBO’s mostly dull, lumbering remake of a classically bad 1958 sci-fi movie (airing at 8 tonight) blurs it. Neither campy nor cleverly written enough to be consistently funny, the new version has what HBO calls a “ ‘90s sensibility.” Thus this story about a rich, suppressed, bullied, passive homemaker who is turned into a kick-ass, marauding giant by a spaceship from another galaxy becomes Attack of the 50 Foot Feminist.

At one point, the newly behemoth Nancy Archer (Daryl Hannah) holds in her massive fist the squirming sexpot (Christi Conaway) who’s openly sleeping with her abusive, conniving, fortune-hunting husband (Daniel Baldwin) and plotting against her with her greedy, despotic father (William Windom). Instead of crushing her nemesis, though, Nancy lectures her about males: “You’re better than they are. You’re smarter than they are. And you know more than you think. We all do.”

Directed by Christopher Guest and written by Joseph Dougherty (based on the movie written by Mark Hanna), “Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman” seeks to reprise the original’s corniness without being overly hammy itself. When the normal-sized Nancy drives in her open convertible, for example, the sights behind her are provided by cheesy rear-view projection. But not too cheesy. And the movie goes for only a moderate Godzilla-style overkill when Nancy goes on a town-crushing rampage before being attacked by military choppers.

Yet the balancing act fails, and this becomes a sendup with a liftoff that’s too weak. The humor just isn’t there. Except for very occasional smart dialogue, none of this works (not Hannah or even the enlarged Nancy using a swimming pool as a bathtub), either as a spoof or a message film about female empowerment. Big woman, big flop.