The Jerk

I wish I’d seen this as a kid. It has an innocence and a stupidity to its humor that is the kind of thing that would’ve had me rolling in the aisles. Seeing it as an adult, I can see that it’s just the one joke — Navin is a clueless, naive dimwit — told over and over again. That can work for a whole movie — the Bill & Ted trilogy exists — but it has to be done so with variety and cleverness, and The Jerk doesn’t have that. It’s just Steve Martin is dummy, over and over again. It’s all done very earnestly, and I can’t hate it for that, but it’s not funny enough to come back to ever again.