Awfully Good: Mr. Nanny

August 1st 2012, 2:15am

Let us pay our respect to the late Sherman Hemsley by cherishing his greatest cinematic work.

Mr. Nanny (1993)

Director: Michael Gottlieb
Stars: Hulk Hogan, Sherman Hemsley, Madeline Zima

A former wrestler gets hired as a bodyguard for a national security expert, only to be pawned off as a babysitter for his nightmarish kids.

MR. NANNY is not as great as SUBURBAN COMMANDO. Let’s get that out of the way first. It doesn’t feature the broad comedy of Hulk Hogan as a fish-out-of-water alien warrior trying to hide out on Earth. No, the makers of MR. NANNY strive for more subtle humor. Like putting the former wrestler in a pink tutu and make him do ballet with a little girl. That’s what you can expect with this movie.

Takashi Miike’s remake of MARY POPPINS was predictable.

Vin Diesel should sue, because MR. NANNY is essentially a remake of THE PACIFIER. The only difference is that there’s no duck and the main character in this version has a perimeter mullet and isn’t completely bald like Diesel. Here Hogan is able to stretch his acting muscles, playing an out-of-work wrestler doing anything for money. When he inadvertently gets hired as caregiver for children, he realizes he’s bitten off more than he can chew! There’s something about protecting a microchip that could end humanity, but the movie would rather you care about the two devil spawn that torture poor Hulk. One is the boy from ROOKIE OF THE YEAR and DON’T TELL MOM THE BABYSITTER’S DEAD. And the other is the youngest girl from “The Nanny” (boy, she really loves home care), who would later get naked on “Californication” and make me feel old and creepy.

Red Hulk will be a welcome addition to THE AVENGERS 2…

The most entertaining part of MR. NANNY is just how ridiculously evil the children are. These kids don’t just need discipline; they should be put on a terrorist watch list and dumped in a maximum security prison. Hell, the boy even has his own high tech lab where he blasts heavy metal music and builds weapons. The movie tries to explain this behavior as the result of their mother dying a couple years earlier, but we know that doesn’t lead to this level of psychosis. When we first meet them, their current nanny is running out of the house screaming WITH HER ENTIRE HEAD ON FIRE. They then begin bragging about breaking a previous babysitter’s legs. On Hulk’s first night in the house, they drop a bowling ball on his head, make him sit in glass, and use a trip wire to make him fall down the stairs. (They even butter the handle so he can’t catch himself.) And that’s not all! Over the next few days the children rig Hulk’s exercise bike to pedal at 90 mph, use a powerful electromagnet to crush his throat while he’s bench pressing, and then electrocute him in the shower. When the boy admits its not enough voltage to kill him, the girl turns it up. I don’t care if they eventually come around and learn to love and respect Mr. Nanny, that’s at least 8 clear-cut cases of attempted murder or at the very least aggravated assault with malicious intent.

…Dandruff Man, not so much.

The villain of the story, while not as evil as the kids, is still enjoyably bizarre. For one, he’s played by New York Dolls frontman David Johansen and two, he has a metal head. No, he’s not a metalhead; his actual skull has been fortified with steel (though it’s clearly made out of tin foil) after an unfortunate run-in with Hulk Hogan. He uses it to head butt people occasionally, but most relies on his Schwarzenegger-Lite henchman. As for the late Sherman Hemsley, he has a supporting role as Hogan’s friend and former manager who took a bullet for him. His recurring jokes involve continually threatening to kill himself and the fact that he’s so poor that every time you see him, more and more of his stuff is getting repossessed.

We’re guessing that involves groping at an Iron Maiden concert.

MR. NANNY does sport some nice touching moments, like when Hulk Hogan sings the little girl a bedtime lullaby and lets her curl his hair. But they’re almost always counteracted by equally weird and horrible things, like the random subtext about Hogan’s father abusing him as a kid. I would say I was potentially reading too much in to it, except for the part where he blatantly tells the child that his dad is rotting in Hell.

Coca-Cola product placement is getting weirder by the day.

There’s a bevy of winning lines in this infamous tutu scene, from Hogan telling Sherman Hemsley he looks “positively effervescent” to the German henchman calling him a “girlie man.”

A little bit of everything: Hogan getting unfairly tortured by the kids, Sherman Hemsley laughably taking a bullet for his friend and more.

No one could find a bigger towel than this? I thought this was a kids movie?

The second best movie you see this year featuring the Hulk! Buy this movie here!

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