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While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Once a upon a time parodies used to be good and not cheap spin offs that grant easy cash. Top Secret definitely is in the class of decent parodies. Though dated, making some references hard to understand, Top Secret booms with more obvious funny moments making the modern audience laugh harder than any comedy of the recent era. The cast is good, the acting is good and the film itself is generally pretty good too. Though slightly dated now, if you've got time go back to this 80's gem to see what the hype was all about. Guaranteed to at least put a smile on your face, but unfortunately can be pretty forgettable. Val Kilmer at the helm, what more could you ask for.

This is a comedy-spoof from Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, featuring Val Kilmer in his film debut. It is an outrageously funny parody of World War II spy movies in which American rock singer Nick Rivers (Kilmer) visits East Germany to perform, but ended up getting caught in the middle of a communist German plot aimed at forcing scientist Dr. Paul Flammond (Michael Gough) in making ultimate super-weapon, the Polaris Mine. Rivers and Flammond's daughter Hillary (Lucy Gutteridge) join the French Resistance, whose members have the most clever and hilarious sounding names you've ever heard, to rescue the doctor and foil the plot.At only 90 minutes long, this movie is stuffed with non-stop laughs and outrageous gags one after the other, from the Resistance members doing the tap dance right in the middle of a gun fight, to the underwater fight in a saloon between Nick and the main villain. From start to finish, this spoof that will send tears to your eyes and have you horse laughing from all the surprise gags, film and cultural parodies and funny dialog.With all the jokes and comedy in abundance, you wouldn't want to treat this movie seriously. The characters, however, seem to treat their "mission" seriously, giving this movie a fast-paced plot, no unnecessary fillers, and a fun story nonetheless. Kilmer did a great job in his first motion picture acting performance, as well as the host of other actors, providing us a thoroughly entertaining movie with comedy that just flows naturally, for a spoof, rather than force, slapstick nonsensical stuff.Overall, it's some of Abraham and the Zuckers' best work. It'll lift your spirits and keep you laughing all day.Grade A

Although it can be argued that they are still being made, the 'spoof' movie really died a death in the 1990's. Recently, there have been tragedies such as Epic Movie (2007) and its various imitations, all of which were the cinematic equivalent of sticking your cock in a blender. They used to be the forte of comedic giants and legends such as Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and the Monty Python crew. David Zucker, Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams made perhaps the last great spoof in Top Secret!, a relentless parody of spy thrillers that seems unfairly forgotten in the wake of ZAZ's (Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker) more popular Airplane! (1980) and The Naked Gun (1988).With East Gemany planning an attack during a cultural festival, they invite American rock 'n' roll singer Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer) to perform as a distraction for the audiences. Rivers, a sort of Beach Boys meets Elvis Presley, soon gets embroiled in the French resistance movement when he meets the beautiful Hillary Flammond (Lucy Gutteridge) who is searching for her missing father Dr. Paul (Michael Gough). Along with a group of misfit revolutionaries with various French pun's for names, and Hillary's lost-love Nigel (Christopher Villiers), they must break into the high-security prison where Dr. Paul is being held. Top Secret! is a film of such effortless hilarity, it's a wonder how and why the three directors behind it parted ways and made such drivel as Jane Austen's Mafia! (1998), Rat Race (2001) and Scary Movie 3 (2003), highlighting just how much they needed each other. It offers near to non-stop sight-gags that vary from the inspired (a train station pulling away from the train) to the downright ridiculous (a character gets crushed in a car then is seen later with his arms and legs sticking out of it, still alive), nearly all of which hit the mark. But there's also clever word play, and that lost art - embracing the stereotype. Would a film nowadays get away with calling it's only black character Chocolate Mousse? There are literally too many funny scenes to mention, but the one that had me in stitches is the scene in which Nigel and Du Quois (Harry Diston) dress up as the rear and front of a cow, when a real cow comes to suck on its udders, much to the pleasure of Nigel. They stop, with Du Quois insisting they make haste, and Nigel replies "you're always in such a bloody hurry!". It's marvellously old-school, headed by a wonderful performance from Kilmer, who as well as getting plenty of belly laughs himself, also proves himself to be a bloody good dancer in the few performance scenes he has. But it is also a sad reminder of just how good this sub-genre used to be.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Following the popular success of "Airplane!" and its less acclaimed sequel, the ZAZ trio was back to what I believe to be the funniest comedy ever: "Top Secret!" a hilarious parody of the WWII spy films and the 50-60's rock-themed movies. Speaking of rock'n'roll, one of the most defining songs of the film performed by Val Kilmer aka Nick Rivers is titled "How Silly Can you Get?" which sounds like a self-reflexive motto."Top Secret!" probably features the highest laughs-out-loud-per-minute ratio from any movie, as there is not one single moment where the action isn't punctuated by a gag, and that this very gag doesn't work. Everything in "Top Secret!" is both hilarious on an anarchic and cathartic level in the way it plunges you into a never-ending positive mindset. You may say that this is the very principle of a comedy, what's more a spoof movie, but it seems like "Top Secret!" has been specially concocted for pure and genuine amusement, and while the much more respected "Airplane!" has its slower moments, especially during the flash-back parts, "Top Secret!" was hilarious from A like Abrahams to Z like Zucker brothers.There are two kinds of gags in "Top Secret!", the direct and the indirect one. The direct is immediate, mostly visual and slapstick, like a "find him and kill him" stamp or a sunbathing girl leaving boob-holes in the sand. The best gags are extended and feature a lot of dancing like the ball scene, the outrageous ballet sequence or a feet-view panic scene. Anyway, whether it's an offensive national anthem, a singing horse, a little German, an over-hilarious moment when Nick is about to be executed and an old lady slowly approaches to pick up the phone, any attempt to list the audio-visual gags of the film is as ludicrous as trying to define which is the funniest. The indirect gag is the elaborated one, already funny by itself but leading to a much more delightful punch-line.The first one involves a weird shot illustrating the road taken by Nick Rivers and his manager, the map looks more and more familiar until Pac-Man makes his appearance, the very gag that sets the tone of the film. When Omar Sharif as Agent Cedric meets a colleague disguised as a party tricks vendor, the whole interaction is funny enough but the icing on the cake comes with the "You dropped your phony dog pooh", an item which obviously is not sold. The gag works even more because we expect it, like when Nick is introduced to the French Resistance, what would you expect from a man named "Déjà Vu" apart from "Have we not met before?" It could have concluded here yet the French sounding names punch-line was with the black guy named 'Chocolate Mousse", which says a lot about an era where anything was acceptable in the name of pure comedy.I don't mean to be too analytical, but my regard for "Top Secret!" is due to one of the two funniest and creative gags from any film, starting with the Swedish bookstore sequence, a cinematic achievement that would have made Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin proud. During that part, there is a gradual suspicion that we're not watching a normal scene, even for a spoof movie, there is something weird in the walking and the talking that gets funnier as it is more noticeable, the scene becomes hilarious when we get the point and yet it goes on and on, a book getting in the right place immediately, dust from ear to mouth, and finally Nick and Hillary 'sliding up' a pole. The sequence goes from funny to not funny anymore until it becomes funny again with the throw away gag of the puppy going backwards leaving the Swedish bookstore owner in a priceless doubted expression.The other and maybe more memorable one, as it made it in the poster involves a clever cow disguise that looks like a real cow from our point of view, it's simple but someone should have thought about that. Now, it became a comedic landmark used in many comedies when a guy disguise as an animal, inopportunely choosing the female one, and invites a male on heat to come on him, but back then it was new that even pushed the outrageousness by involving a little veal thirsty for milk, the villain's reaction (in the disguise) is a laugh-riot. That's the secret of "Top Secret!", a comedy that doesn't take itself seriously except for its genuine desire to make us laugh. The rest of the gags are as good as it gets, and features many fourth-wall breaking, like when Nick and Hillary feels that the romance "makes it's like a bad movie" and then they look at us, and many film references are made, notably one hilarious climax in a sub-aquatic Western bar, and a clever farewell a la "Wizard of Oz"."Top Secret!" is made in such a way, that we either enjoy a gag or wait for one to come, so there's no time break. The only little pauses are provided by these moments when we can enjoy Val Kilmer's musical performances but the humor is never away. But my enjoyment of the film is proportional to my sadness to see it so often overlooked by the peers and movie viewers, playing on anagrams, I want to say that "TOP SECRET!" is a comedy "TO RESPECT!". Indeed, when I checked the list of AFI's Top 100 Laughs, I was surprised not to see "Top Secret!" listed while "Fargo" and "Jerry Maguire" and less 'lol'ling comedies were, I'm even surprised that the film is hardly mentioned among the greatest parodies or that it didn't have any nominations for the Golden Globes.Seriously, I can't see, regarding "Top Secret!", how funnier can a movie get.