Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star

A good premise is wasted in yet another lousy David Spade vehicle. Spade plays the title character, a washed-up actor who decides to hire a family as a means of recapturing his lost childhood. While this sounds funny, it actually isn’t because Spade and company slather on a heaping pile of melodramatic mayonnaise rather than concentrate on the laughter. An endless parade of former child stars, including Leif Garrett and, my personal favorite, the guy who played Rerun on What’s Happening!! (aka Fred Berry), make cameos. This gimmick is cute at first but gets killed to death by the end credits when they all sing a stupid song reminiscent of USA for Africa’s “We are the World.” Spade was a little funny in the Chris Farley movies, but crap like this and Joe Dirt are going to lessen the hits on David Spade Web sites.