To compete with King Ralph, this hot mess of a movie was rushed out to make a few dollars. The result is a stupid movie. While King Ralph is ridiculous, it is not dumb. It is a comical look into a very odd and unlikely scenario where an unlikely person becomes King. On the other hand, this movie is dumb. The Pope Must Die / Diet tries to be a comical story about a stupid scenario where an unlikely, unquailed, unknown and unpopular person becomes Pope without any checks or balances or common sense.
In a word where there is no checks and balances and where movies rely on one joke scenes, the Pope Must Die / Diet fails on all levels. A waste of a talented cast, the storyline Is not only dumb but insults its audience to allow any notion that the premise is believable. King Ralph is entertaining for a vast audience, young and old. There are multiple funny moments along with drama which makes it a good movie.
This sad excuse of a movie has no drama or comedy and, worse, has no audience. It is an insult to comedy, drama, Catholics, Italians, mobsters and even common sense. There are moments worth watching, but for an 84-minute movie, there should be at least a minute or two worth stomaching, let alone digesting. All in all, this is just crap.
Some scenes are just completely ignorant without any signs of worth. King Ralph would have some smart explanations to compliment the slapstick and over the top funny moments. Here, there are scenes that are just filler to get to the next scene. There is no purpose other than to just add more time to this mess of a movie.
The late Robbie Coltrane does his best to be a John Goodman Jr in his portrayal of a bumbling clown that has accidently slipped into the shoes of the Pope. Still, his character is only given moments to explain his back story and motivation. He never questions anything until he puts on the papal vestments, travels across Italy and is shown the insulting fictional accounts of the Pope's residents. This is not only hard to swallow for any audience member that you want to connect with this character, who is supposed to be likeable and sympathetic. It is hard to consider him either as the story gets more and more unrealistic.
In defense of this crap movie, by the halfway point, the movie becomes a complete farce. Although it tries to have some dramatic flair, the movie abandons any effort to be serious and goes into complete joke show to keep some members of the audience entertained.
Like chocolate spaghetti this movie has an acquired taste and a limited audience. With a re-write, this movie could be considered a cult classic. It is not because you can tell, this movie was rushed to make a deadline.
