Free Enterprise (1998)

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

I new I was in for a treat when the filmmakers themselves announced that this was a cult classic in the opening Star Wars style scroll. Please. Cult classic usually means low quality crap liked by only the people it was directly made for and this mess is no different. The acting for the most part is ham handed and self conscious, the directing is kind of juvenile and the script is incoherent. This is obviously trying very hard to be a Kevin Smith rip off, using the same dialog style and supposed sly references only Trekkie geeks would get, sadly it's not even close to Smith's worst. It is also a blatant take on Swingers with the lovable loser theme and even uses one of the same actors. At points you think it may be getting better and there are even a few giggles here and there but untimely it fails. There is a scene in the diner near the middle that may be one of the worst written I have ever viewed. Also the amazingly real to life situation where poor average looking Star Trek geeks get laid every other day by a new model is just boring. The last scene with Shatner rapping is just ridiculous, in fact the whole self deprecating act he puts on through this snore fest is embarrassing and just like this movie, does not work.

This film is a love letter to Star Trek fans. It's charming, the dialog is snappy and funny and Shatner proves, brilliantly, that he gets the joke. Pretty funny even if you aren't a fan, but if you are, you'll feel like you've met some great friends in the filmmakers.While you might expect a film that embraces Star Trek and, very oddly, Logan's Run so lovingly, to grow its humor in a patch of its own kitsch, Free Enterprise works very hard to be much more urbane. The two leads have a sort of lightening repartee that you could mistake for a screwball comedy were it not peppered with references to 60s and 70s Sci-Fi ("I do NOT need to reminded of the plot line of "Amok Time"!") It's such a treat.

Sorry to those who think this thing's an instant classic, but 'Free Enterprise' was terrible.  The only movie I've seen that was worse was 'Dogma.'  Even though William Shatner, like George Carlin in 'Dogma,' gives it a microgram of watchability, this flick was not funny, not interesting, not entertaining, and definitely not worth remembering.I dig Shatner and Star Trek/sci-fi and got most of the desperately hip references, but I just loathed virtually all of the characters.  I didn't care about anything in this movie!  'Master of Disguise' had better dialogue.  'The Ladies Man' had more believable relationships.  And what was with the film editing?  It was like watching a deck of cards being shuffled (badly)... hell, 'Memento' was easier to follow than this celluloid disaster. Not even Shatner's throwaway rap scene at the end could save the stinker that is 'Free Enterprise.'  I was half-hoping he'd grab a microphone and repeat his famous "Get a life" skit from SNL, instead saying "Get a tub of cyanide and drink deeply."Shame, they took a good idea and drowned it in a bottomless pit of a screenplay.  I hope the kids that made 'Free Enterprise' grow up someday and make a real movie.  (I see they're making a sequel to this, 6 years later.  I guess they had nothing much else going on...)

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*I saw this one on cable. "Free Enterprise" is about a bunch of thirty year old movie geeks in L.A. If you can catch all the movie reference jokes, you are a Movie God. I think I caught most of them. "My romantic life has been like a Fellini movie...8 1/2 weeks." If that joke makes any sense to you, you need to see this flick. When the guys were hanging out and basking in their pop culture omnipotence, I had a good time. All the scenes with Shatner were great too. But there is a good portion of the flick taken up by relationship problems. The guys turn on each other when a fantasy girl drops from heaven, (she reads Sandman!), and steals one of the geeks away. Best friends analyze each other and explain why they're still single. Why can't you commit?! I was waiting for the guy with the glasses to charge his friend a bill for psychiatric services rendered. These scenes were annoying. But thankfully they don't take up a majority of the movie.This movie will be best appreciated by thirty year old sci-fi movie geeks. If you are in that category, you should check out this flick.