'IF LOOKS COULD KILL'..........21 BOND ST........

If Looks Could Kill (1991)   Here's a choice little morsel we unearthed from the l990's.......a decade that nobody's much in a hurry to remember, except maybe CNN and few radio stations.......

            Blending a teen slacker comedy with a James Bond spoof wasn't a bad idea........and if director William Dear had only found a young comedic actor for the lead role, the movie might have really taken flight......(someone along the lines of Anthony Michael Hall in rubber-limbed '16 Candles' mode, or the aggressively strange DJ Qualls )

             But the film went with Richard Grieco, the perfectly sculpted male mannequin from the "21 Jump Street" TV series, who already resembled a Junior Varsity Bond, complete with school jacket....

              Before you even get to the film's wild secret agent shenannigans, you'll have to swallow the initial premise......that genial high school failure Michael Corben (Grieco), can make up the missing credit (in French class)  he needs for his diploma by going on the a class trip to France.  Yeah, sure. His apoplectic Dad can't believe it either.....

              Off he goes anyway........and we'll make no attempt to rationally explain how, at the airport, High School Michael Corben gets mistaken for a top secret agent, also named Michael Corben....

               Once in France, our would be hero is relentlessly pursued by assassins in the employ of evil mastermind Augustus Sterenko (Roger Rees) and his loathsome little minion Ilsa Grunt (Linda Hunt, having the best time of anyone in the movie, channeling both Ilse Steppat and Lotte Lenya from the Bond films)

              Also on Michael's trail.....his outraged French teacher whom the befuddled, confused heads of American and British secret services mistake for a rogue agent, simply dubbing her, 'The French Teacher'......

              Whether you enjoy any of the imitation Bondian hijinks that follow strictly depends on your tolerance level for all the homage spoofery on display......
you wonderful BQ visitors already know how much of  a Bond fanboy we are.......so we freely admit we enjoyed the hell out of it.....

              Favorite moments......Grieco struggling to open a vacuum sealed condom, not realizing that the twitching femme fatale awaiting him is gyrating not from anticipation, but  from a scorpion stuck in her nightie.....(even better, she sports the Austin Powers-worthy name Aureola Canasta).....Linda Hunt whipping around a lethal gold necklace.....Grieco and a metal-handed goon slugging it out atop a cauldron of boiling gold that's temporarily sealed with a cracking layer of frozen nitrogen.....and Grieco and babe du jour Gabrielle Anwar fleeing the blades of an upended helicopter.....

            A trifle,  a timewaster.....but loads of fun and the pace never flags.  If the filmmakers had taken the trouble to find a gifted actor instead of settling for generic studmuffin Grieco, we would have rated this one higher........but it's still a fast 90 minutes of a good time.....3 stars (***)......and beware The French Teacher......