| The Adventures of Pluto Nash | |
| Music: | John Powell |
| Cinematography: | Oliver Wood |
| Distributor: | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Runtime: | 95 minutes |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | $100 million[1] |
| Gross: | $7.1 million[2] |
The Adventures of Pluto Nash is a 2002 American science fiction action comedy film directed by Ron Underwood and starring Eddie Murphy (in a dual role), Randy Quaid, Rosario Dawson, Joe Pantoliano, Jay Mohr, Luis Guzmán, James Rebhorn, Peter Boyle, Pam Grier, and John Cleese. The film was released in the United States on August 16, 2002.
A critical and financial failure, the film is notable for being one of the biggest box office bombs of all time and has appeared on several lists of worst films ever made.
In 2080, there is a colony on the Moon called Little America. Businessman, entrepreneur, retired smuggler and ex-convict, Pluto Nash buys a nightclub in an attempt to fulfill his long-time wish and also to prevent the murder of the club's previous owner and old friend, Anthony Frankowski, by mobsters Gino and his nephew, Larry. With the help of his friend Miguel and an android named Bruno, Pluto cleans it up and turns it into a very popular nightclub.
Seven years later in 2087, a young woman named Dina Lake, the daughter of a friend of Pluto's, Nicky Sticks, is stranded on the Moon and needs to earn money for transport back to Earth. Pluto gives her a job as a server. Pluto is accosted by Mogan and Kelp, henchmen of mysterious entrepreneur and businessman Rex Crater, who wants to buy the club. When Pluto refuses, the henchmen use bombs to destroy the club. Pluto, Dina, and Bruno manage to escape.
Pluto's friend Rowland, a retired police detective who also knows Pluto's mother, Flura, learns that Rex Crater has associates linked to human cloning. While Pluto and Dina investigate further, Crater's assassins strike, but Pluto and Dina escape by hijacking a limo driven by a holographic chauffeur named James.
Their investigation further links Michael "Mike" Zoroaster Marucci to Crater. They are again attacked and chased by Crater's henchmen; they barely escape and are then rescued by Felix Laranga, a local smuggler who idolizes Pluto Nash. They infiltrate Crater's casino/hotel at Moon Beach.
Pluto finally confronts Crater, who reveals himself to be a clone of Pluto. Crater has shot both Marucci and Dr. Runa Pendankin into orbit and established his own criminal enterprise. When Mogan and Kelp arrive, Crater kills them for their incompetence. He and Pluto then fight, with Crater ultimately being thrown through a window to his death.
Sometime later, a celebration is held at the fully renovated Club Pluto, where Dina puts on a performance as a singer, with Nash as the owner once again.
Neil Cuthbert's script had been in development with producer Martin Bregman since at least 1983 under the shorter title Pluto Nash. Directors Rick Rosenthal and Peter Faiman were attached to the project at different times. Various stars including Harrison Ford were rumored to have considered doing the film. Eddie Murphy became attached to the film while it was in development at Castle Rock Entertainment. The company, which had previously worked with director Ron Underwood on City Slickers, sent Underwood the script. Underwood signed on to the film after the release of his film Mighty Joe Young. Different writers were hired to revise the script over a period of several months, but Eddie Murphy "kept rejecting the scripts," according to Underwood. Murphy asked for a "straight" script, like one that would be written for Sylvester Stallone or Harrison Ford, and said that he would "bring the comedy." Underwood delivered this to Murphy but believed that the script still had "problems" and hired another writer to continue to work on it during production.[4]
Underwood was dissatisfied with the results of the film as he was shooting it. "I knew we didn't have the kind of wit and the fun that I would want...I felt that it was not really working fully...But it wasn't very obvious how to correct it." He praised the talents of the cast and crew and said that he enjoyed working with Murphy, but said that Murphy "wasn't feeling that funny, I don't think." The result was that Underwood was on the production for four years. A review of a version of the film (with no special effects) that was published on Ain't It Cool News in January 2001 did not help matters, as Castle Rock became spooked and commissioned two weeks of reshoots in Los Angeles that pushed the film's budget to $100 million and miss a release date intended to be in April 2001.
The Adventures of Pluto Nash was critically panned. Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film 79th in the 100 worst 2000s decade movies list,[5] with a rating of 5% based on 91 reviews. The critical consensus states, "The Adventures of Pluto Nash is neither adventurous nor funny, and Eddie Murphy is on autopilot in this notorious box office bomb."[6] On Metacritic, it holds a 12 out of 100 based on 12 reviews, meaning “overwhelming dislike”. Joe Leydon was one of the few critics to give it a positive review calling it "a prodigious popcorn flick that may be the most undeserving victim of critical overkill since Town and Country".[7] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C−" on an A+ to F scale.[8]
Pluto Nash was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards in 2003 including Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Eddie Murphy), Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Screen Couple (Murphy and himself cloned), but failed to win any. It was later nominated for Worst Comedy of Our First 25 Years at the 25th Golden Raspberry Awards in 2005, but lost to Gigli.
Eddie Murphy poked fun at himself in an interview with Barbara Walters, saying, "I know the two or three people that liked this movie."[9]
About the movie's reception, Joe Pantoliano said: "You usually can’t tell when a movie is going to be shit, but on that one you could. And I think Ron Underwood, the director, got victimized by that, because that guy is good. But because of the material and the style in which some players came to work, we were off the mark, you know? A lot of hanky-panky going on there. So, I wasn’t surprised. I was surprised it turned out to be better than I thought it was going to be."[10]
Director Ron Underwood expressed regret that the movie didn't have a "core piece of storytelling like the mid-life crisis" and said he thinks "the film was not very good."
The Adventures of Pluto Nash was a box-office bomb, with its budget estimated at $100 million and domestic box office $4,420,080 and $2,683,893 overseas. It had a total worldwide gross of $7,103,973.[11] In 2014, the Los Angeles Times listed the film as one of the most expensive box office flops of all time.[12]
The film was released on DVD and VHS on November 19, 2002 by Warner Home Video.