Still no fun with ‘Dick and Jane’

HOLLYWOOD studios have become so desperate for material that they’ve begun remaking middling or just plain terrible movies -- not only genre films like “The Amityville Horror” and “Assault on Precinct 13” but also odder ducks like the political comedy “Fun With Dick and Jane.” Too often the remakes don’t improve on the original movies; they just magnify the first films’ shortcomings.

“Fun With Dick and Jane” is a socially conscious farce about an unemployed couple turned suburban Bonnie and Clyde. The Jim Carrey-Tea Leoni version simply pastes a veneer of topicality to the 1977 George Segal-Jane Fonda vehicle that became a modest hit because of its concept and star power.

There were always one or two things hugely wrong with “FWDAJ.” The filmmakers portrayed their characters as loony materialists: After Dick lost his high-paying aerospace job, the one antidote to poverty they could think of was armed robbery. They were too one-dimensional to identify with, and too obviously jerky to rouse satisfying sneers. Visually, the only way to put these antiheroes over was to portray them as figures from the pages of the Dick and Jane school readers. Yet the ’77 movie fumbled that too -- the only hint of storybook stylization came in titles inspired by kids’ books.

The new “FWDAJ” changes Dick’s employer to an Enron-like corporation on the eve of implosion. It’s full of savvy attacks on rapacious CEOs and CFOs as well as business-world media spin. But the characters remain a hollow man and a hollow woman. They justify their crime because they live near corporation headquarters and must compete for the area’s few remaining jobs. It comes off as a petty rationalization. Once again, the attempt to portray Dick and Jane as the grown-up kids from the readers proves woefully inadequate.

Audiences should vote with their nonattendance and stop the cycle of mediocrity now. Otherwise, a bout of “Fun With Dick and Jane” may be in Dakota Fanning’s future.

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Michael Sragow is a film critic at the Baltimore Sun, a Tribune company.