'Fun with Dick and Jane' Film suffers from hyperactive scenes

The original film's low-key approach was effective.
By CHRISTY LEMIRE
AP MOVIE CRITIC
Like "Assault on Precinct 13," "The Longest Yard," "Yours, Mine and Ours" and a slew of other remakes this year of movies from the 1960s and '70s, "Fun With Dick & amp; Jane" confuses speed and volume with innovation.
The idea of having Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni go on an armed-robbery spree -- as George Segal and Jane Fonda did in the 1977 original -- is funny enough in itself without amping up their antics with quick edits, broad sight gags and loud, peppy music. (Although the choice of Devo's "Uncontrollable Urge" as they speed away in their beat-up getaway car is admittedly inspired.)
Part of what made the first film work was its tone: Segal and Fonda played it straight, almost as if they were starring in a domestic drama about an upper middle-class family in financial trouble rather than a comedy, which actually made it funnier. They took the time to talk to each other as husband and wife. They took a breath.
Presumably, director Dean Parisot ("Home Fries," "Galaxy Quest") goes for the wacky physical humor to play to the strengths of his stars. By now we all know what Carrey is capable of in the mugging and pratfalling departments; Leoni isn't quite his equal -- despite having been once touted as the next Lucille Ball -- but she seems to share his sense of fearlessness, as well as his nonstop energy level (more like a constant buzz that permeates your brain, the kind halogen lights give off).
Updated script
As in the original, both are forced to look for work when Dick's company lays him off, but they find that a life of crime is a far more lucrative way to support their son and maintain the comfy suburban lifestyle to which they've grown accustomed.
Screenwriters Nicholas Stoller and Judd Apatow (the comic genius behind "The 40-Year-Old Virgin"; go see that instead) have effectively contemporized "Dick & amp; Jane" by placing Dick's employer at the center of an Enron-type scandal, complete with inflated earnings reports, massive paper-shredding efforts, a good-ol'-boy CEO (Alec Baldwin doing a gravelly twang) and employees losing everything because all their investments were tied up in the company stock.
Not long after being named vice president of communications, Dick appears live on a CNBC-style financial program, where he's ambushed with tough questions about his bosses' misdeeds and cracks under the pressure. By the time he returns to the office, the pandemonium has long been in high gear: People are literally setting things on fire and fighting over plants.
Every once in a while, though, when everyone involved takes it down a notch, "Fun With Dick & amp; Jane" seems to have something to say.
"We followed the rules and we got screwed," Dick laments after myriad failed attempts at finding employment.
It's a sentiment of frustration to which a lot of people in the audience -- as well as the many others whose financial concerns are too pressing to afford them an afternoon at the movies -- will surely relate.