Brendan Fraser, the handsomely rubbery leading primate in George of the Jungle, continues his cheery rampage through the swingin’ cartoon creations of Jay Ward as the ruggedly dim Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman who loves his horse, Horse, slightly more than he loves his girl, Nell (Sarah Jessica Parker), and who fights his evil nemesis, Snidely Whiplash (Alfred Molina), with a combination of valor and inadvertent slapstick. Curses, though: The balance of inspired idiocy to hackneyed buffoonery is out of whack in Dudley Do-Right, which relies far too much on the loose-floorboard-that-conks-you-in-the-face routine, and its ancient ilk.
Perhaps if Canada hadn’t already been so recently, smashingly spanked in South Park, the whole Mountie-parody thing wouldn’t feel quite so stuffed like a moose head. On the other hand, writer-director Hugh Wilson dispatches Riverdance excess once and for all with a couple of expertly cheesy numbers staged by the showbiz-mad Indians of Semi-Happy Valley. And he manages to lasso those other showbiz-mad chieftains, Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford, for a cameo suggesting that even a century ago, the well-preserved duo was out promoting flash-in-the-pan celebrity.