Giant drugs coroporation Roritor are hitting financial difficulties and need a successful new drug to follow up their previous one, Stummies. So they put a new anti-depressant called Gleemonex on the market, which makes you focus on your happiest memory - but it hasn't been properly tested, and has a major side effect...
This is the only film outing for the Canadian TV comedy team, the Kids in the Hall. It takes the central plot about Dr Cooper's problems with the drug he's invented as a starting point for a series of sketches involving other characters, like the suburban husband who refuses to admit he's gay, the old lady whose happiest memory is a thirty second visit from her family at Christmas or the doom-rocker whose career takes an unexpected turn.
The "Kids" play most of the parts themselves, in a Monty Python kind of way, including the female characters (which makes the lab romance between the doctor and one of his assistants even more ridiculous). As with the TV series, it's not consistently funny, a bit hit and miss, but when they do hit the mark they make you laugh out loud. I like some of the details: the Queen of England approving Gleemonex, the Tom Jones impression on the chat show, the supermodel named "Clemptor".
The movie tells us that you can have too much of a good thing, and that it's unhealthy to be happy all the time - a message for us all, there. A few of the TV characters show up, but sadly there's no Chicken Lady or the "I'm crushing your head" guy. But who could forget Cancer Boy? At least it's funnier than some of the Saturday Night Live spin-offs. Watch for: Brendan Fraser as a test subject. Um... was there ever a Frantics movie?
