The Real Thing

Stormy Daniels seems to be channeling the spirit of the late John Hughes to fashion a series of Adult rom-coms, capturing his sense of humor and big heart. "The Real Thing" is a minor variation on the formula of "Weird Science", only approaching the wish-fulfillment premise from a fantasy rather than sci-fi starting point.

Gimmick is a sex doll, the full-size type Wicked Pictures sells (recently plugged unabashedly in the lousy Brad Armstrong feature "Sexbots"). Seth Gamble is horny for temp co-worker Vicky (played by Stormy herself) but has to settle for spending $6,000 for a Real Doll version of her he customizes to match her physical specifications. Hopefully a Wicked masturbation doll costs just a fraction of that ridiculous amount.

Seth is roommates with Brendon Miller, Stormy's favorite actor cast in scores of her Wicked movies, and the two serve as twenties versions of the teenage "Weird Science" leads, made older to avoid kiddie porn accusations. Six years out of college, Miller is a failure, working in a liquor store, while Seth is a flunky at some unspecified job -seems to be customer service of sorts.

Biggest fault with the feature is that the premise of a Real Doll isn't introduced until 58 minutes have elapsed, halfway into the movie. The humpable doll (also very well-played by Stormy) doesn't appear on screen until 75 minutes are shot, leaving 40 minutes of fun hi-jinks and slapstick revolving around her/it.

As a performer, Daniels is top-notch, spitting out her dialog with aplomb and showing amazing comedy timing - I wish she had been able to fashion a mainstream acting career as she certainly demonstrates the required talent. But her direction is quite sloppy.

Early on in verbal exposition scenes that introduce the main characters, she greets co-worker Paul (played by Jake Jacobs, the show's director of photography) and in the next sentence refers to her sexy boss played by Ryan Driller as Paul, even though we've already met him in a scene where he humps Stormy across his desk and his name is Martin Allen. This flub remains in the final print.

Two extraneous sex scenes are tossed in with zero attempt to integrate them properly into the film: AJ Applegate, who works with Seth's roommate, is suddenly in the ladies' room at work (a liquor store with an incongruously huge bathroom) having torrid Sapphic sex with Bonnie Rotten, including the inevitable fountain of urine "squirt" from the tattooed superstar. But Bonnie's character is never introduced -all we see is her in XXX action, then off to the paymaster with her, a gonzo assignment well done.

Similarly, Miller's girlfriend Chanel Preston is cheating on him in Paris away with her boss, shown to us in a 3-minute blow job applied by her to Chad White -he gets no dialog and this extraneous footage doesn't even count among the feature's stand-alone, streamable sex vignettes.

The doll is accidentally brought to life, after amazingly effective Stormy mime as a motionless mannequin (Kim Cattrall in "Mannequin" is another rom-com inspiration here) by a spell/potion provided by neighbor witch/psychic Kylie Ireland, in an excellent uncredited cameo role. Like Jacobs, she is recruited from the crew, serving as Stormy's art director, though the movie's sets are quite chintzy.

The gags and their execution in the final reels once the doll has come to life are quite good, but it sure took a long time (occupied by XXX footage mainly) for them to start up. Film's feel-good message is okay, but the picture could have used a more charismatic/handsome leading man (say Driller for example) than Miller.