After establishing himself in the early 1990s as America's premier prop comic, Scott Thompson AKA "Carrot Top" made the jump to feature film with 1998's Chairman of the Board with horrible results. Directed by Alex Zamm, this film was so poorly received by both critics and audiences that still frequents IMDb's Bottom 100 to this day. Is all that, hate, warder toward the film, really deserved? Yeah, it does, but this movie isn't the worst film ever; after all, there are far worst comedians out there, with far more horrible comedies. Still, the movie is pretty bad, once you seem it. Carrot Top stars as Edison, a failed inventor and surfer dude who became the head of a major invention company, Macmillan Industries when a dying CEO, Armand Macmillan (Jack Warden) choose him, over his nephew, Bradford McMillan (Larry Miller), due to his penchant for inventing things. Due to this betrayal from his uncle, Bradford set up a sinister plan to hustle the company out of Edison's hands, and sell, the company for millions of dollars. Without spoiling the movie, too much, I have to say, a lot of people were a little too hard on Carrot Top in this movie. Yes, he's very annoying with his clumsy, slapstick self-deprecating humor and stupid prop puns; but at least, his character was somewhat likable with his quirk-like attitude and charming demeanor. Still, I kinda glad, this was Carrot Top's first and only starring role. Thompson has purposely stayed away from Hollywood after the dismal failure of Chairman of the Board and with the exception of stand-up appearances and popping up in wacky cameos on late night shows and web videos, has largely resisted that part of show business. I think, his limited talent is better suited for his stand up gag in Las Vegas than here. I do like the way, he delivered some jokes with whirling dervish of excitement and enthusiasm. I just don't think, he has the film presence to make audiences watch this movie, even if he wanted to. Even with the fact that this movie came out, during the height of the spokesman in commercials for 1-800-CALL-ATT fame, it was no surprised, to hear at the time, that this film drew less than $200,000 at the box office, nor has aged well, since then. Just think, if this movie was made with today's Carrot Top, with his oddly shape muscle fuel body, and his ugly plastic surgery old face, recycling old jokes. It would be tiresome and ugly-looking. Now, that would be, totally unwatchable. I think, the biggest reason, why this movie fail to gain, an audience is the fact, that it's not that funny. If they did, it were a little too childish or cartoony for my taste. If anything, Larry Miller's performance as Bradford McMillian kinda save this film, from being placed in a 1/10 rating from me. I always love his over-the-top nastiness stereotypical typecast roles in comedy movies. In my opinion, he's was great in 1996's 'The Nutty Professor' & 1999's '10 Things I Hate About You' and he's alright, on here, as well. Meanwhile, Courtney Thorne-Smith of TV Show 'Melrose Place" (1992-1999) fame does somewhat work as supporting character, Natalie Stockwell, the Vice President and overseer of production. However, I really didn't find the whole love-interest and chemistry between her and Carrot Top's character, believable. It was bit frustrating to see how 1990 clichés; her character was, with her, falling in love with the main character, despite having little to no interested. One character, I really could do, without is Raquel Welch as heiress, Grace Kosik. I don't her, constant repetitive appearance and disappearance, throughout the film. It really got so annoying toward the end. Another thing that bug me about this movie is the weird camera shots. All the extreme close up, canted, worm eye, and bird eyes didn't work. It was really distracting to the point, that it made the movie, far worse than it's originally had. Overall: It seems that no matter what Scott Thompson does, he can't quite get the level of respect that he desires, whether as a physical specimen or as a comedian. In his defense, I have to say, Carrot Top isn't the worst thing, ever. Despite what I think about his movie, though, Carrot Top is a great entertainer and no one attains that level of success without having some comedic chops. So props for that. Just don't make movies.
