Walt Disney Pictures
Starring: Matthew Broderick, Rupert Everett, Mike Hagerty
Directed by: David Kellogg
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: Based on the popular animated series. John Brown (Matthew Broderick) is a security guard who longs to be a cop and is in love with scientist Brenda (Joely Fisher). An accident leads to John becoming Inspector Gadget and trying to apprehend the evil Claw.
Featured Feline: One of the many changes made between this movie and the cartoon series is in the original show Dr. Claw had a sidekick black and grey colored cat named M.A.D. Cat. Here the cat is white and named Sniffy and Dr. Claw starts out as Sanford Scolex, a ruthless businessman out to steal Brenda’s robotic inventions. Sniffy is at Scolex’s side in the first scenes where he appears outside Brenda’s lab.
Scolex, Sniffy and henchman Sikes (Mike Haggerty) are in a limousine. Sikes starts running some robots with a control box when Sniffy jumps into the front seat and starts pawing at the box.
As a result they crash the van containing the robots into the side of the lab.
Scolex manages to steal the robotics from the lab and then says, “Sniffy, let’s go.” During their escape, Scolex has his hand crushed by John, later replacing it with the infamous claw.
We don’t see Sniffy again until much later when he is sitting in Scolex’s huge office.
Sniffy steals Sikes’ cruller, angering the man.
Later when Scolex is trying to escape his high rise with Brenda he heads to the elevator. The dog Brain tries to stop him by ripping off his underwear. During this scene Sniffy is obviously a stuffed cat.
Sniffy appears in the helicopter with Brenda and Scolex as the man tries to escape.
Gadget saves Brenda from the helicopter, leaving Scolex and Sniffy to parachute down.
They land in the back of the Gadgetmobile, which locks them into a cage.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): In the middle of the film Gadget is ordered to do unimportant community work by Chief Quimby (Dabney Coleman). One of his jobs is to rescue cats from trees. Gadget arrives at police headquarters carrying a tabby kitten which he presents to Quimby.
As Gadget asks when he will get to do some real police work, the kitten is seen drinking from Quimby’s coffee mug. The kitten makes a noice indicating it is not well when finished.
Quimby will not budge on his position and Gadget takes the kitten and leaves. When Quimby takes a sip from his cup he does a spit take.
Final Mewsings: Evil cats love crullers.
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