Senseless Review
by "Harvey S. Karten" (film_critic AT compuserve DOT com)February 4th, 1998
SENSELESS
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D.
Dimension Films
Director: Penelope Spheeris
Writer: Greg Erb & Craig Mazin
Cast: Marlon Wayans, David Spade, Matthew Lillard, Brad Dourif, Tamara Taylor, Rip Torn
Since at least one-third of American homes have dogs as members of the family, you may wonder what makes this animal so endearing. The answer is simple: we are taken in by the unmixed love that our dogs feel for us (assuming we treat them half-decently) and we probably envy the many ways they are superior to us homo sapiens. They hear better, run faster, have a more acute sense of smell, and judging by the way they swiftly gobble up the blandest-looking of commercial food, we've got to assume they have a more robust sense of taste. Without expressly saying this, or even mentioning these canine concepts in her movie, Penelope Spheeris's in the hilarious "Senseless," written by Greg Erb and Craig Mazin, concocts a funny, funny man who injects himself with a potion that gives him these superior attributes.
"Senseless" revolves around a brilliant, but penniless, college senior, Darryl Witherspoon (Marlin Wayans), who works his way through Stratford University doing just about anything that will support his stay at the school. He not only waits tables, the typical chore of people in his category: he sells his blood to the blood bank and semen to the sperm bank, two tasks that provide munificent materials for comic scriptwriters. When a research doctor advertises for people willing to take an experimental drug which will increase the five senses of those who inject it into their backsides, a number of students turn up, but because of the alleged side effects, only the desperate Darryl is left in the room.
Using a young cast, some of whom from backgrounds with "Saturday Night Live," director Penelope Spheeris--whose credentials include being at the helm of the high-spirited "Wayne's World"--unfolds a fast-moving progression of side- splitting events that mix physical comedy, romance, sentimentality and even Wall Street jargon so effortlessly that the performers look as though they're having at least as good a time as their audience. In the beginning, when Darryl follows the protocol given him by the scientist, Dr. Wheedon (Brad Dourif), he's amazed at what he can do. He sees women wiggling their bodies on the street with his binocular vision, hears conversations of women behind bathroom doors, and becomes so virile that he offers to fill up a water-cooler sized jug at the sperm bank with a single donation. He uses his powers to get to first base with the lovely and sophisticated Janice (Tamara Taylor) but can get no further because he has no proved to her that he's a super guy in the maturity department. He works wonders on the hockey court and becomes a contender for the high-paying job of junior analyst conducted by one of its executives, Randall Tyson (Rip Torn), a job which he wants desperately so that he can move his mother and siblings out of Harlem. Forgetting that more is not always better, he ignores the doctor's advice and doubles up on the drug, causing him alternately to lose his vision, his hearing, his sense of touch, and his smell--a temporary handicap which provides most of the ribald humor of the story.
Marlon Wayans may have entered the movie business on the coattails of his better-known brother, Damon, and if his role in "Senseless" is any indication he may become the next Eddie Murphy. Demonstration an uncanny ability to mimic the fast talk of Jim Carrey, the rubber faces of Jerry Lewis, the physical shtick of Chaplin, Wayans not only keeps the audience laughing but makes us care about him. In fact at a recent critics's screening, a few sophisticated folks watching the film actually yelled at the screen, "Don't! Don't! as Wayans is about to plunge the double-dosed hypodermic into his rear.
A good deal, perhaps most, of the humor is sophomoric, the sort of waggery that would appeal to the "Animal House" crowd, "Senseless" probably can cross over to a crowd older than thirty and from various ethnic groups. David Spade of "Saturday Night Live" is a splendid foil in the role of Scott Thorpe, who is Darryl's well-connected principal competitor for the job of junior analyst and Matthew Lillard is well cast as Darryl's well-pierced roommate. Appropriate farcical elements are contributed by Kenya Moore as Lorraine, who is Janice's competition for the attention of the super-hero.
Cinematographer Albert Beveridge captures the swift action on the hockey court as Darryl blocks a hundred pucks in succession and affords us some garish, fish-eye poses to simulate the torment which the leading man is enduring.
Rated R. Running time: 95 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
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