The Strongest Man in the World (1975)

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Watched entirely out of nostalgia, The Strongest Man in the World is the third of a series of Disney live action films starring young Kurt Russell as Dexter Riley, a science student at an unprestigious college who invariably gets super-powers from some experiment or other. As a kid, I saw all three, but never really clued in to the fact that they were all about the same character. I have a vague memory of thinking, hey, it's that movie again, only to be surprised by whatever new power he got that time. Weird. Looking at it out of context now, you can certainly tell you're meant to be enjoying long-running gags and ooh, they brought back Caesar Romero and such, but it's not like it's hard to catch up. While there are some fun super-strength gags, Disney's live action fare in this era isn't anything to write home about. Their 70s stuff looked like 60s sitcoms, with that flat light and colorful look, and Russell is just about the only character that isn't a broad comic caricature. There are a lot of very stupid characters mugging at the camera in these things. And if it's Kurt Russell you want, he's absent from the second act in favor of people we don't much care about, and a sequence that's mildly offensive to Chinese Americans. So not a great showing for the last Dexter Riley story, which doesn't mean I wouldn't want the first two again given the chance, or wouldn't love today's Kurt Russell returning to the role. 5 years 3 months ago