Mannequin (1987)

Mannequin (1987)

3/10

Starring

Andrew McCarthy

Kim Cattrall

Estelle Getty

G. W. Bailey

Directed by Michael Gottlieb

The movie is so bad, but yet you get this odd urge to know how it will end. Sadly when that happens you still know this is one of the worst comedies you have seen

I wonder how the writer thought this was a good idea, he must have felt he had a classic in his hands because he also went on to direct this sleep-inducing film.

The movie starts with a massive plot hole in the beginning and then delves into the unreasonable and makes a home there. Do not try and put things together when watching this movie, or try to make sense of the stupidity going on, if you are going to see it, just do.

Mannequin starts off in Ancient Egypt with princess Emmy refusing to settle down and prays to the gods to save her from this. The next thing we see in an earthquake like divine intervention and the princess vanish. Now in present day 1987, a young man Jonathan who has a desire to be a sculptor finds it difficult to keep a job. He lost his job at a mannequin making factory for spending too much time being artistry on a female mannequin. Through his days from then on we see him, go through numerous jobs also getting fired because of his desire of being too artistry with the simplest things.

After a string of bad things on a day, he passes department store and sees the last mannequin he made, which he spent so much time on, and calls it his greatest masterpiece. The next day he saves the owner of the store and gets a job at the store.

That night when he was working with a co-worker to design a shop window, the mannequin he last made and adored comes to life as Emmy. Emmy says she has existed for centuries, appearing to various great artists as a muse, and can only be visible to him alone. To the surprise of everyone in the store, the window Jonathan designed with the aid of Emmy became a popular window, attracting people to the store, making Jonathan popular as a great window dresser. As every window he and Emmy does becomes a hit.

As you can guess, this lady has been alive for thousand of years as a muse to many artist, but it is now she finds the perfect man and falls for him as he does her.

The challenges in the movie is his ex who works for a rival company to his present one and the company has a spy in the store who is doing everything to sabotage the store. Jonathan’s great job as a window designer is bringing shoppers to his store, undermining the task of the rival store.

As far as acting goes, only Kim Cattral seems to be in full flight. Special effect wise, the movie doesn’t have much to offer in that regard. The only thing about this movie that stands out to me is the music it gave us, Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now by Starship. Love that song.

In the end, regardless of how silly this movie was, it ended up being a commercial success, in fact a huge one which led the studio to order a second part. And as you can assume, that was a dud, nobody was going to pay money again to see what happens next or another retelling of a mannequin like tale.

Seeing this movie is not a good idea.