The first two Brady Bunch film were beautiful dumb fun. This film is dumb, dumb, dumb. I don't even know where to begin. First of all, the new Brady Bunch kids plus Alice were terrible at portraying their characters. At least Shelly Long and Gary Cole reprised their roles as Carol and Mike. But the rest are barely trying. Part of the fault lies within the writers for replacing subtle double entendres with blatant straightforward unoriginal dirty jokes, which takes away from the Brady Bunch feel. Another problem is how this film is shot. In the first two Brady Bunch, scenes set in the Brady home were shot just like the show. It was a comedic contrast between the real world and the Brady World. In this film the Brady home scenes are shot exactly the same as the rest of the film. Again, this takes away from the Brady Bunch feel a great deal. I've barely even dug into the plot. Bobby finds a winning lottery ticket and Mike decides to turn it in. The family is honored by the president. Then MIke becomes the president. See what's wrong here? It's nothing like the Brady Bunch. The plots of the first two Brady Bunch films heavily referenced story lines from the original series. They took place mostly within the Brady home. This plot is convoluted and is paced horribly. There's barley even a few scenes set in the Brady home! Most of the humor in the film comes from political jokes which constantly fall flat. There's nothing funny about Marsha not knowing the House of Representatives. Not only that, but the concept of "What if Mike Brady were president?" becomes horribly tired. Meanwhile, Jan's inner voices from the first film came back, only it was acted out flatly and in the most unfunny way. Another call back comes near the end with Marsha & Peter's weird quasi-incestuous relationship. Once again, it's handled with zero subtly and the humor is sucked out of the situation. Peter also becomes slightly more crude. He makes references to stuffing a sock in his pants and he talks about boobs a lot. That's not Brady behavior at all! None of the Brady kids act like Brady kids. The writers probably have never seen an episode of the Brady Bunch in their lives. The main focus of this film is Mike and Carol, with very little focus on the kids. While this was probably for the best because, like I said, the Brady kids are terrible, the film overall felt like a huge bore. The first two films had the perfect amount of cheesy humor, subtle jokes, and clever references. The Brady Bunch in the White House is as blunt as dull kitchen knife. It's an dark spot on an otherwise wonderful film series.
The Brady Bunch in the White House
(2002 TV Movie)
Complete Garbage
6 February 2014
Warning: Spoilers