This could have been pretty funny, actually. Richard Dreyfuss, Natasha Lyonne, and Jenna Elfman are among the various talents assembled here to tell the story of Dr. Krippendorf, a university anthropology professor who creates a hoax by claiming to have "discovered" an unusual stone age tribe (the "shelmikelmu"), and who then must recruit his reluctant children to "portray" the tribe on film, enhancing his relationship with them in the process. Unfortunately, the jokes are few and far between. The problem here is that this movie doesn't know quite what it wants to be - a family oriented comedy or a comedy about a family geared more toward those who might have some notions about the nature of the hoax. The central joke, that those who are in on the hoax are having a hard time sustaining it, gets old quickly. Overall, a disappointment and a waste of a good cast. This might have worked much better had it been done as vehicle for the broader comedic talents of Jim Carrey, and done in a much more over the top manner; it could have been a fine send-up, in the manner of the slapstick comedies of the past, of our own culture's pretensions. Rating = 3/10
Review of Krippendorf's Tribe
