In the Army Now reminds me a little of the Corey Haim/Corey Feldman film Last Resort. Both came out in the year 1994, and both have potential to be very enjoyable works of farce, they fail in taking themselves seriously. In In the Army Now and Last Resort the films have a few parts that are really funny, but then they are followed by dull and laughless jokes that don't go anywhere and make you want the film over as soon as possible. What a perfectly good waste of Shore and Dick's talent.

My favorite work of Pauly Shore was in the 1996 film Bio-Dome. I don't think we'll ever get something as good as Pauly Shore's work in that film. The first half of In the Army Now is very entertaining, but the funniest stuff is in the electronic store where Shore and Dick work in the beginning. If that was made into a film it would be a Clerks style film which would be very impressive. Instead the film thinks it will be funny to ship them off, well, in the army. Now.

The plot revolves around Bones Conway (Shore) and Jack Kaufman (Dick) who, after a matter of minutes, are fired from their job at an electronic store for wrecking a stack of TV sets. In an effort for quick money, Bones and Kaufman join The United States Army Reserves.

The boys sign up for water purification as their field, and after passing the training, they meet a tomboyish woman named Christine Jones (Pretty) and a dentist named Fred Ostroff (Grier). The four nickname their group "the waterboys". What they do not realize is that Libya is attacking Chad, and Bones and Jack get called into duty. They now must survive out in the army, with their new group.

I caught this on TV and thought "this may be good for a farce laugh." While I did laugh a few times, the jokes weren't original or clever for that matter. I still have three Pauly Shore films I need to watch (Encino Man, Adopted, and Jury Duty), and I hope at least one is better or surpasses Bio-Dome There has to be one.

Andy Dick managed to squeeze some awkward, yet appropriate laughs out of this film which is surprising. I never really found Andy Dick too amusing, but this film taught me he isn't all bad. Thats pretty much all I learned from In the Army Now. That may be an accomplishment. I don't think anyone else learns a damn thing from a slapstick fest.

Starring: Pauly Shore, Andy Dick, Lori Petty, David Alan Grier, and Brendan Fraser. Directed by: Daniel Petrie, Jr.

Despite some good talent in this movie, it really didn't add up to much. The jokes were much more miss than hit, and certainly this film suffered from predictability. It wasn't a disaster by any stretch, but I'm sure that the number of times that I laughed was smaller than the number of times that I looked at a clock during this film. It's just yet another comedy that isn't very funny, folks.

While Son in Law is Pauly Shore's best movie, this is proves to be my personal favorite among his body of work. The premise of Shore being in the army is about hilarious as Leonardo DiCaprio demanding $25 million and getting it! Plenty of laughs either way. Anyway, this film was rather funny and sarcastic, satirizing the military and the macho attitudes which seem to be quite prevalent. While the cast (Shore, David Alan Grier, Andy Dick and Lori Petty) isn't going to impress you with their firm grasp of the thespian arts, it still was good stuff to watch. Also, Esai Morales and Art LaFleur both

provided solid supporting roles.