Second Sight (1989)

Before Joel Zwick bored us with "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," he assaulted us with this.

Wills (John Larroquette) is a former cop who works with psychic Bobby (Bronson Pinchot) and Ph.D. Preston (Stuart Pankin) to solve crimes. Boston Cardinal O'Hara (William Prince) and Bobby's love interest Maria (Marisol Massey) are kidnapped, and the psychic detective agency Second Sight are on the case. Wills has run-ins with cute Sister Elizabeth (Bess Armstrong, the best thing here), and Preston is married, which means everybody has a girlfriend to end up with in the final shot.

The investigation into the cardinal's disappearance is about as challenging as an episode of "Blue's Clues." The audience is punished with the exact same routine throughout the film: Bobby does something off the wall and crazy (trying to be funny), Preston takes pictures and identifies the psychic phenomenon (trying to be funny), and Wills slumps, complains, and mopes (like the viewer; and trying to be funny). How these three ended up together is not important. Elaborating on how Bobby got his psychic powers after getting struck by lightning is not important. How Preston's wife kept winning prizes after getting lottery numbers from a sleeping Bobby without Preston finding out is not important. With all these dangling plotlines, there must have been a lot more to this eighty-three minute movie. Maybe it is a good thing scenes were deleted, that would mean the stuff left onscreen was the funny stuff and I did not smile once. Zwick's direction is like the sitcom work he has done. Larroquette plays his Dan Fielding character from "Night Court," Pinchot channels Balki from "Perfect Strangers," and Pankin copies Harold Ramis' Egon Spengler from the "Ghostbusters" films. Everyone mugs and grimaces, but no one can squeeze a chuckle out of this lame script. The special effects are awful- animated glowing lines and flashing blue lights.

I remember when this film came out, and how badly it did. I wish I had never laid first sight on this. Leave "Second Sight" unseen.

Stats:
(1989) 83 min. (1/10)
-Directed by Joel Zwick
-Screenplay by Michael McDowell and Tom Holland based on the novel by Stephen King
-Cast: John Larroquette, Bronson Pinchot, Stuart Pankin, Bess Armstrong, William Prince, Marisol Massey, John Schuck, James Tolkan, Michael Lombard, Christine Estabrook, Adam LeFevre, Andrew Mutnick, Ron Taylor
(PG)