‘McHale’s Navy’ the Same Rank as Original

Although it comes under the increasingly crowded category of Why Did They Bother, “McHale’s Navy” does offer an example of a movie that tries to be all things to all people. As long as they’re 13 and male.

It has, and I mean it, everything: Adolescent comedy. Numerous massive explosions. A terrorist subplot. White male patriarchy. Loud Hawaiian shirts. And let’s not forget name recognition, even if the TV series ran only from 1962-66 and was largely forgettable. Inspired by “Sgt. Bilko” and the precursor of “F Troop” (1965-67), it starred Ernest Borgnine as a Navy commander chasing both Japanese ships and whatever illicit profits he and his cohorts could make in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

A lot has changed in McHale’s Navy. For one thing, McHale’s not in the Navy. Played by the occasionally amusing Tom Arnold as a guy lost somewhere between Animal House and Donovan’s Reef, McHale makes his money selling beer, ice cream and girlie calendars (no nudes, because this is a family film, which is why there are so many explosions) to the real Navy personnel (real, of course, being relative) and living the life of ease on his own private island.

All of which comes to a screeching halt when Capt. Binghampton (Dean Stockwell) arrives to shake things up a la Capt. Queeg, and terrorist Tim Curry makes things hot for McHale’s personal village full of locals. Stockwell, with his voice jacked up an octave, does a passable homage to Joe Flynn, the original Binghampton. Curry, playing one more goateed villain, is the Russian Vladakov, although his accent wanders everywhere from Finland to Greece.

Other changes? Ensign Parker, originally Tim Conway, is now black and played by David Alan Grier. The toadying Lt. Carpenter is now a woman (Debra Messing). The esteemed Borgnine plays Cobra, a military bigwig with a secret identity (take a shot, you can’t miss). No one calls Binghampton “Leadbottom,” although if one more sailor yelled, “Hey, Skip!” at McHale, I was going to throw myself overboard.

The cast is generally as nondescript as the original, although Bruce Campbell (star of Sam Raimi’s classic “Army of Darkness”), who plays Virgil, is the focal point of the movie’s funniest scene, a bar fight in Havana, in a Cuba that looks like Club Med with an attitude.

One question: McHale’s crew lives on San Ysidro, and the only San Ysidro I know was the site of the 1984 massacre of 21 people at a McDonald’s. Is this a stupid joke? Or just a mistake? Either way, coming from “McHale’s Navy,” it isn’t all that surprising.

* MPAA rating: PG for action/violence, mild language and innuendoes. Times guidelines: safely stupid.

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‘McHale’s Navy’

McHale: Tom Arnold

Vladakov: Tim Curry

Carpenter: Debra Messing

Binghampton: Dean Stockwell

Parker: David Alan Grier

Cobra: Ernest Borgnine

A Bubble Factory production released by Universal Pictures. Director Bryan Spicer. Producers Sid, Bill and Jon Sheinberg. Screenplay Peter Crabbe. Cinematography Buzz Feitshans IV. Production design Gene Rudolf. Editor Russell Denove. Costumes Michael T. Boyd. Music Dennis McCarthy. Art director Kim Hix. Set decorator Patrice Laure.

* In general release throughout Southern California.