The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) * * *

 

Directed by:  Betty Thomas

Starring:  Gary Cole, Shelley Long, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Christine Taylor, Paul Sutera, Michael McKean, Jean Smart, Jesse Lee Soffer, Henriette Mantel, David Graf, Jennifer Elise Cox, Olivia Hack

A Brady Bunch feature film was inevitable due to its popularity explosion in syndication.   The Brady Bunch Movie features the timeless Brady family inhabiting mid-90's Southern California.  They remain unflappable in the face of carjacking, hip-hop music, and a $20,000 tax bill they must pay before the end of the week or be evicted from their home.  This news brings mild discomfort to the Brady household, who are as cheerful and plucky as ever while their neighbors and the rest of the world see them as oddballs.  

The actors inhabit the Brady characters of the early 1970's television series effortlessly.  Gary Cole as the ever-optimistic patriarch Mike Brady and Shelley Long as his supportive wife Carol could play Robert Reed and Florence Henderson if a movie was ever made about the making of the series.  The Brady clan uses words like "groovy" and drive around in their 1970's model station wagon while using CB radio.  They are hardly affected at all by the outside world.  When a young punk tells them this is a carjack, Greg smiles and says, "Yes, this is a car, but my name's not Jack, it's Greg,"  The kid barely knows what hit him.  The Brady guilelessness serves as a shield against the harder-edged modern world.

The Brady Bunch movie satirizes the modern world while gently poking fun at the Bradys themselves.  Some of the plotlines from the series are followed, with scheming neighbor Larry (McKean) trying to force the Bradys and the rest of the block to sell to make way for a mall or something.  Some of the slapstick here doesn't mesh with the rest of the movie, but like the Brady family, the movie manages to remain good-natured and high-spirited.