My, but isn't David Swift's The Parent Trap about 50 gallons of pure, gooey sap? It's about as harmless and inoffensive a family comedy as can be. That's not necessarily a sin, but what kills me about the film is that it's so poorly paced that the proceedings get bogged down in the sugary swamp. At over two hours long, it feels about 30 minutes too long. (How odd, considering that Nancy Meyers' 1998 remake with Lindsay Lohan was exactly as long, but for some reason I remember it feeling a lot shorter. And I watched that film a lot when I was a kid.) Hayley Mills is fine, but after a while her aw-shucks persona becomes overbearing. She had that habit a lot of child actors from the time period had: they talked and behaved like miniaturized adults, not children. No matter how comforting I find the aesthetic of 50s and 60s Disney family films--I think it has something to do with the bright, pastel colors and ubiquitous flat lighting--this film was just a snooze. By the way, did anybody else notice that the scene where Mills plays the guitar was one of the most hilariously faked I-can-totally-play-guitar scenes ever? She doesn't even make chords! She just strums an open guitar and different chords come out!
5/10
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