Concept: Multiple generations of a family have perfected the art of disguise. They use their abilities to stop crimes, solve mysteries, and help their allies. One of the family members doesn’t want a dangerous life for his son, and does not tell him about their family’s legacy. But, the son develops a knack for disguise and mimicry anyway. The son must tap into this talent to stop a man with a vendetta against his family from completing his evil schemes.

How they fucked it up: On the surface, this would make a good kid-friendly spy movie. But, there are definite missteps, starting with the name of the main protagonist and his family. Our hero’s fucking name is Pistachio Disguisey. (Even as a kid, I thought the name was stupid) Someone was going over names for the protagonist and thought to themselves, “You know what we should name these masters of disguise? The fucking DISGUISEYS.” Shit, if you wanted the family to still be Italian and matching the theme that badly, you could have named them the Travestire (to disguise oneself) family or the Maschera (mask) family. But no, you wanted to make it abundantly clear that the Disguiseys are masters of disguise.

That would be like naming the Rivera family from Coco the Shoemakerys or the Musicianys.

Now, you might be wondering, how did the Disguiseys become masters of disguise? Was it years of training? Was it extensive knowledge of other cultures? What about a massive network of allies who supply wigs, latex masks, and other supplies to the family? 

Who the fuck knows? They apparently just have all those things, but how they got them is not explained very well. But, what is explained is all the Disguiseys have the power to essentially become another person with a mystical energy called…Energico. Basically the Force, but Italian and used to turn someone into a racist caricature. And also like the Force, there is a light and dark side to Energico. What that truly means is anyone’s guess.

So, fucking Pistachio Disguisey (ugh), like many Happy Madison protagonists, is a socially inept dumbass. He has no friends, pisses off strangers, and can only keep a girl interested in him for as long as he doesn’t speak. He is supposed to be an awkward nerd, but he is actually a nerd who so badly needs to be the center of attention that he just randomly starts mimicking people. Eventually, through no character development on his part, he becomes stronger and more confident. But, this just amounts to him being good at slap-fighting. Everyone loves an underdog, but when we aren’t given much on his character aside from “he does weird voices” and “he likes big butts,” we aren’t really rooting for him. 

The movie’s lead actor, Dana Carvey, was already a good impressionist, having been on Saturday Night Live for many years portraying numerous actors and politicians. It would seem that this movie would be right up his alley. But, as a ScreenCrush review put it best, “he is supposed to be a master of disguise, not a master of impressions.” Meaning, he is supposed to blend in seamlessly to the crowd and surroundings, and do what he needs to do without immediately arousing suspicion. Nearly all the disguises arouse suspicion. If someone comes to your house dressed as the most stereotypical German man in existence, constantly giggling and trying to get the woman you kinda-sorta took hostage away from you, you tend to find that suspicious.

Also, the disguises/personas themselves are supposed to be these memorable, iconic characters, some of whom get several minutes of screen time. But, most of them come and go pretty quickly without much fanfare. Of the 15-ish, I was only able to remember 2 off the top of my head prior to starting this post: The fucking Turtle Guy, and Gammy Num Nums. 

Are you able to name any more of the “disguises” shown in the film without Googling them? 

Where Carvey’s impression of George H.W. Bush worked is that it was a ridiculous caricature of someone. The “disguises” in this movie are caricatures of caricatures. The joke is “I’m making jokes about the joke.” For instance, there’s a scene where Pistachio disguises himself as Quint from Jaws and tries convincing some bad guys there’s a shark in the pond he’s hanging out at, by incorrectly quoting Quint’s speech about the shark attacks. (“Twenty-two kids come out of the water…the ice cream man, he take the rest.”) The only funny bit there is him abruptly babbling gibberish. Carvey is still doing an impression of someone (Robert Shaw) but he’s not really making jokes like he would do during a cold open of SNL.

Another big issue with Master is one that is also prevalent in many Happy Madison productions: the way the female lead is handled. Our leading lady is Jennifer (Jennifer Esposito), who is hired to be Pistachio’s assistant. The interview process involves Pistachio and his grandfather making comments about her ass, then she is literally told that she WILL fall in love with Pistachio. And, despite her thinking Pistachio is a weirdo, she rather abruptly does fall in love with him midway through the movie.

Here’s the thing that makes Jennifer’s situation worse; she is a more competent spy than Pistachio. In every scene where they are supposed to be gathering clues or researching the villain, Jennifer is doing the actual work and trying to be inconspicuous while Pistachio acts like a distracting jackass. I go as far as to say that Jennifer would be better set as the main character. Have her be trained as a master of disguise, with Pistachio as the bumbling sidekick. Or, even keep her as Pistachio’s assistant, but make other people go, “…Wow, Pistachio kinda sucks at his job. Here, Jennifer, you get all the credit for stopping the bad guys.” It would have made a more interesting story, in my opinion. But, no, Jennifer gets relegated to sexy assistant/damsel status.

The main villain, Devlin (Brent Spiner), is both everything right and everything wrong with the movie rolled into a cool-suited package. Devlin was basically a kingpin who steals rare/irreplaceable items and sells them on the black market. In the past, he was thwarted by Pistachio’s father and sent to prison. But, after his release, he wants to start his criminal empire back up, using Pistachio’s father as his easily disguisable gofer. But, the main thing people remember about Devlin is not his weirdly blue eyes, but his weird quirk. Whenever he laughs evilly, he farts. 

Devlin is already a simple character with a simple motivation. He’s a greedy villain who wants more money. But, he’s also a walking fart joke; the lowest form of humor in a movie that was already fixated on butts and silly voices. And since Devlin is our villain, he’s gonna be laugh-farting a lot. They didn’t really give him any funny lines while he was gloating about his schemes or being creepy to Jennifer; he just farts. This, along with his goal/motivation, seemed to be intentionally “dumbed down” for kids to enjoy.

On the other hand, the scenes with Devlin are interesting to watch, especially when we are at his mansion or his underground lair (both of which are actually really cool to look at, design-wise). He isn’t mugging at the camera or putting on a silly voice. He’s just being a slightly less campy Saturday morning cartoon villain. He forced a renowned master of disguise to steal the fucking U.S. Constitution. He’s got a whole-ass evil lair. He’s got henchmen, ninjas, and seductresses with BBLs at his disposal. He’s evil, he knows he’s evil, and he’s having a good time being evil. And, despite what I said about the laugh-farting, there are a couple of times when that bit is actually funny. People were surprised to find themselves laughing at a fart joke at all, let alone more than one. 

Cards on the table; I liked this movie as a kid. Granted, that’s because I was a kid who didn’t know better. But, I liked the colorful, opulent sets. I liked the idea of someone who not only could disguise themselves, but fully become another person with a latex mask. At the time, I thought Devlin was a really cool supervillain (seriously, who steals the Liberty Bell?!) And yes, a lot of the jokes, including the fart jokes, made me laugh.

Watching the movie again as an adult, I understand why it got such a low Rotten Tomatoes score. The things aimed towards kids are somehow too childish, and whatever adult jokes didn’t age well just weren’t funny. I haven’t been able to verify this, but Master supposedly started as a straight parody of spy movies and their tropes; basically Mission: Impossible, but with raunchier jokes. But, executive meddling happened, and the movie needed to be more kid friendly. Unfortunately, that meant dumbing down many aspects, like the humor, the characters, and even the runtime.

A lot could have been done with this movie had it just been left to the original premise, or even had some of the deleted scenes reworked and added back. But, any potential Master of Disguise had was buried under things like this.