Myers appears in View from the Top as Paltrow's cross-eyed trainer and does his specialty--openly insincere, gimmicky delivery--in scenes so limply directed that empty style and the parody of empty style merge. Goldmember is a much better example of how a movie can relentlessly send up the conventions it's employing. (It also shows that camp is not the exclusive province of gay men.) Can you imagine if Myers had tried to wring emotion from the father-son scenes in Goldmember? Paltrow's hesitation about going all out probably explains why these movies with female stars are half in and half out of camp. I would guess that the majority of the female audience doesn't want to see a pretty girl like Paltrow being irredeemably ridiculous. The result is this neither-nor comedy, painless but less memorable than movies that are much much worse.

For instance, the best old unintentionally campy movies were never done with a stewardess until she'd had to land the plane in an emergency, taking instructions over the radio. I treasure the memory of Doris Day at the end of Julie (1956) popping the stays of her breathy repressed emotionalism, as if using the flight instruments were the real test of an actress; or Karen Black in Airport '75 (1974) bringing the big bird down despite a hole in the cockpit, her hair wisping gently in the breeze. In View from the Top Paltrow actually plays for emotion the scenes in which she gives up her highly coveted international route so that she can be with her boyfriend in Cleveland. Then at the end they try to restore the already dim twinkle by showing us that she goes on to become a pilot, which is just the Disney-feminist version of the stewardess landing the plane, with a hint of camp as an insurance policy with the hip crowd. I bet it goes over even better with junior high school guidance counselors.

You can also find this review, and a lot more at Kitchen Cabinet.

Alan Dale is the author of Comedy Is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies.