These latter-day Columbo movies can be pretty painful to watch. The actors are the cheesiest of 80's/90's TV 2rd stringers, the settings look like cheap sets of tasteless interiors rather than actual places, the soundtrack is synth pop elevator music, and the goofiness is just ... too goofy.
What I'm referring to is the unfunny poker game with Nancy Walker, Dick Sargent and Ron Cey. What a random collection of b-list cameos, and it makes the scene feel like a waste of time. Like, rather than listening to what happens, you can't help but sit through it and wonder did they grab the first three vaguely recognizable people who passed by the soundstage on the Universal Studios lot?
As for catching the criminal, I don't think so. This was the old bluff play that Columbo has used before, but this time, it's worse. Columbo bluffs that he can, through some unheard of trick of chemistry, prove that the murderer did it, and he's about to do it (it won't work)... and the bad guy says, "don't bother, I did it." Phew! Everybody's happy. Come on! That's pathetic. That's Perry Mason territory.
What I'm referring to is the unfunny poker game with Nancy Walker, Dick Sargent and Ron Cey. What a random collection of b-list cameos, and it makes the scene feel like a waste of time. Like, rather than listening to what happens, you can't help but sit through it and wonder did they grab the first three vaguely recognizable people who passed by the soundstage on the Universal Studios lot?
As for catching the criminal, I don't think so. This was the old bluff play that Columbo has used before, but this time, it's worse. Columbo bluffs that he can, through some unheard of trick of chemistry, prove that the murderer did it, and he's about to do it (it won't work)... and the bad guy says, "don't bother, I did it." Phew! Everybody's happy. Come on! That's pathetic. That's Perry Mason territory.