When I saw that the Disney Studios wanted to revive Spin And Marty which was a staple of the old Mickey Mouse Club from the Fifties I was looking forward to seeing how they updated the characters to fit into the new century. To say I was disappointed is putting it mildly.
The old show had Marty Markham a spoiled rich kid who is being raised by his grandmother who thinks that the Triple R boys ranch might just straighten him out and cure him of his snobbish ways. When the reluctant Marty gets there he clashes with everyone, but most of all Spin Evans whose working class parents and himself save every nickel they can to send him to the Triple R. These two are rivals at everything, rodeo events, a wild horse, later on girls. In the end they kind of bond.
Except for the very end the whole rural cowboy scene is eschewed for a film that's urban and based a lot on a combination of Spy Kids and Cody Banks. David Gallagher as Marty is still a rich kid who is being threatened by his parents either make a friend or go to the Triple R for some straightening out.
He makes a friend with Spin Evans played by Jeremy Foley, the building super's kid who ought to be in some kind of therapy for a really overactive imagination. That's the friend he makes and the two of them become a team looking for trouble as Gallgher shares in Foley's fantasies.
It's the old boy who cried wolf once too often who is not believed when he actually uncovers a real murder plot concocted by Judd Nelson against Yancy Butler who just moved in their building. Of course the kids with aid of Gallagher's trusty butler Charles Shaughnessy have to foil the dastardly Nelson and his evil scheme.
All this film about two kids who've got issues made me feel is all the more nostalgic for the old Spin And Marty of my youth and the Triple R ranch which I wished I could have gone to as a kid. The Magic Kingdom should have left Spin And Marty back on the ranch.
The old show had Marty Markham a spoiled rich kid who is being raised by his grandmother who thinks that the Triple R boys ranch might just straighten him out and cure him of his snobbish ways. When the reluctant Marty gets there he clashes with everyone, but most of all Spin Evans whose working class parents and himself save every nickel they can to send him to the Triple R. These two are rivals at everything, rodeo events, a wild horse, later on girls. In the end they kind of bond.
Except for the very end the whole rural cowboy scene is eschewed for a film that's urban and based a lot on a combination of Spy Kids and Cody Banks. David Gallagher as Marty is still a rich kid who is being threatened by his parents either make a friend or go to the Triple R for some straightening out.
He makes a friend with Spin Evans played by Jeremy Foley, the building super's kid who ought to be in some kind of therapy for a really overactive imagination. That's the friend he makes and the two of them become a team looking for trouble as Gallgher shares in Foley's fantasies.
It's the old boy who cried wolf once too often who is not believed when he actually uncovers a real murder plot concocted by Judd Nelson against Yancy Butler who just moved in their building. Of course the kids with aid of Gallagher's trusty butler Charles Shaughnessy have to foil the dastardly Nelson and his evil scheme.
All this film about two kids who've got issues made me feel is all the more nostalgic for the old Spin And Marty of my youth and the Triple R ranch which I wished I could have gone to as a kid. The Magic Kingdom should have left Spin And Marty back on the ranch.
