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“Brian [Levant, left] is
‘Mr Flintstone’.
He knows more
about the lore of Bedrock and
the TV show than
anyone alive today”
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Fred (played by Full Monty star Mark Addy) and his best friend Barney (Stephen Baldwin) have just graduated from the Bronto Crane Academy and have been offered jobs at the Slaterock Gravel Company.
Meanwhile, in a better part of town, surrounded by lavender silk flowers, Wilma Slaghoople (Kristen Johnston, who played the Russian supermodel in last summer’s Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) is miserable, despite being heir to the fortune of Colonel Slaghoople (veteran actor Harvey Korman, voice of The Great Gazoo in the original TV series) and his wife, Pearl (TV legend Joan Collins, taking over the mother-in-law role from movie legend Liz Taylor, who played the part in the first film).
Pearl is determined that Wilma will marry the debonair Chip Rockefeller (Thomas Gibson), a charmless socialite who drives a Cadirock, graduated first in his class at Princestone and has his eye firmly fixed on the Slaghoople millions.
Moving into town, Wilma becomes best friends with Betty O’Shale (Jane Krakowski). They get an apartment together in Melrock Place and find part-time work at the local Bronto King. Before long, they meet Fred and Barney, romance blossoms and they all set off together on a BC-10 for Rock Vegas, leaving behind Dino the puppy but accompanied by a little green alien called The Great Gazoo. This last role is played by British actor Alan Cumming, the toast of Broadway for his role as the MC in Cabaret, who “likes to do something different from what I last did”. Indeed, Cumming does so twice in the film, also playing the part of prehistoric rock star Mick Jagged, lead singer with (you got it) The Rolling Stones.
Meanwhile, Chip also shows up in Rock Vegas and tries to sow disharmony with the help of a showgirl called Roxie (Alex Meneses) so that he can re-ingratiate himself with Wilma and get his hands on the Slaghoople fortune. But love, as I expect you can guess, wins the day - even if it all nearly got off to a false start.
Joan Collins as
Wilma’s mother,
Pearl Slaghoople. |
“There’s a sweet element in the film,” says Krakowski, who plays Elaine in the cult TV show Ally McBeal, “because the characters are paired off differently in the beginning. But then Fred tells a joke and Betty laughs and Barney laughs and that’s what seals their fate. They both have these laughs that probably no one else would accept. That’s their connecting bond.”
It was also a major part of the attraction of the role as far as Baldwin was concerned. “I still can’t figure out the fact that they are actually paying me to have this much fun,” says the youngest member of the acting dynasty, whose other screen credits have been in more distinctly serious fare like The Usual Suspects, Born on the Fourth of July and One Tough Cop. “Barney was always my favourite character, because he knew all the answers: he just had to try and get someone to listen to him. Plus I get to do that laugh.”
Although the story of the new film is quite different from the old one, a lot of elements have been carried over from the first Flintstones outing, notably the wise-cracking prehistoric animals designed by the Jim Henson Creature Shop. Christopher Burian-Mohr, art director on the first movie, becomes production designer on this one. And the editor is once again Kent Beyda.
Alan Cumming as The Great Gazoo. |
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