So, now that I’ve trashed it out of the gate, I should note that the film does strike a strange, oddball, cartoonish tone that is quirkily at odds with this potentially exploitative premise. What could have easily been a raunchy T&A fest instead becomes a naïve rom-com, almost as if a dirty old man came up with the premise, and then a grade schooler wrote the screenplay. So, ultimately, I have to admit, the movie kinda sorta does have some charm.
The plot involves the competitive world of department store window dressing (yeah, right) as two big stores, one struggling and the other successful, duke it out for supremacy. The villains lined up against McCarthy are an over zealous mall security guard (G.W. Bailey), a jealous ex-girlfriend (Carole Davis), a greedy businessman (Steven Vinovich) and a sniveling corporate spy (James Spader – I guess McCarthy and Spader are contractually obligated to always appear together).
In McCarthy’s corner, though, there’s his secret weapon – Kim Cattral, the living mannequin, who for some reason is actually the latest incarnation of an immortal Egyptian princess (or something). That stuff doesn’t really matter, except that she’s served as a muse for a lot of the greatest over the millennia, and now she’s here to muse it up with McCarthy and his department store windows.
I’d like to give a special shout out to my favorite character in the film, another window dresser who teams up with McCarthy – Meshach Taylor as the perfectly named Hollywood Montrose. Topping his outrageous wardrobe with an endless succession of crazy sunglasses, Hollywood posed a conundrum for me. The character is clearly an offensive gay stereotype played just for the laughs of the presumably hetero audience, but thanks to Taylor’s performance, he’s also the funniest, most lovable and most entertaining character in the movie. So, although Taylor was tasked with using his powers for evil, they’re still great powers, and I salute him.
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