A boldly literal interpretation of what was, at the time, sixty-year-old source material, Dick Tracy was dated before it had even commenced filming. In today's world, it's a painful reminder of what happens when badly misread cultural trends, aging showbiz producers and a full committee of writers collide on-screen.

Visually it's a day-glow disaster, combining recklessly outlandish wardrobe, distractingly obvious matte-painting backdrops, startlingly grotesque makeup effects and an odd mix of kids' primary colors with ink-black noir lighting. The cast is so stale, weak and one-dimensional throughout that not even an A-list staff of Hollywood's elite is able to play life preserver. Dustin Hoffman, James Caan and Al Pacino are lost amidst the flood of stilted dialog, Madonna sleepwalks through a rotten performance as, basically, herself, and Warren Beatty is so squeaky clean and unrelentingly straightforward in the leading role that it almost works on a purely satirical level.

Clearly someone, somewhere, saw the runaway success of Tim Burton's Batman around the corner and chose to grant a similar treatment to a character they recalled from the funny pages of their own youth, without stopping to consider if Tracy's story was as relevant and trans-generational as Bruce Wayne's. The splashy colors and simple, hackneyed plot make it a no-sell to adults, while the abundance of sex and violence also makes it tough to buy as a kid's movie. Genuinely awful from start to finish, I had to watch in three installments because it kept putting me to sleep.

A bit too mellow yellow.

Dick Tracy is directed by Warren Beatty and written by Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. Based on Chester Gould’s comic strip creation of the same name, it stars Beatty, Al Pacino, Madonna, Glenne Headly, Dustin Hoffman, Charlie Korsmo, Charles Durning and William Forsythe. Music is by Danny Elfman, with songs by Stephen Sondheim, and cinematography is by Vittorio Storaro.

Punk Rock band X-Ray Spex once sang about The Day The World Turned Day-Glo, Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy was exactly that. The live action cartoon is a feast for the eyes, as the city backdrop for this cops and gangsters tale is a fountain of bright, lurid primary colours. The characters are drawn brilliantly, where the good guys are very much human, but the bad guys are a bunch of grotesques, like a mutant gathering under one coalition banner. All star casting, striking costuming, amazing effects work, quality songs and a brisk musical score (Elfman reworks his score for Batman from the previous year), Dick Tracy as a production is grade “A” stuff. It also did very well at the box office, where although it didn’t reach Disney’s expectation levels financially, it coined to the tune of over $100 million in profit Worldwide. Not bad for a film some still think was a flop!

It’s a film that feels a lot better watching it now than it did back on release, to be able to view it as a smart technical accomplishment for the time it was made. The cast factor also makes it something of a fascinating experience, watching legends like Pacino and Hoffman absolutely buy into the cartoon excess on show. However, the old problem with it just will never go away. Yes the plot is very simple, but that’s easy to accept these days, it was after all a gangster movie made for all the family, it’s that Beatty’s portrayal of Tracy is too under played. He’s a good guy, we know that, we are on his side, but it’s a flat characterisation, he’s never pushed to be anything other than a cool dude. This of course lets the monstrous villains take the film by the scruff of the neck, as most villains tend to anyway, but for a film carrying his name, you expect a bit more from Dick Tracy the man.

Still, Dick Tracy is a fun movie experience, not all it can be, but enjoyable regardless. 7/10

I'm heartily disappointed that this didn't produce sequels. If any fine actor/director of the period was perfect for the role of Dick Tracy, it was Beatty. He does very good work here. It's as if he took Tim Burton's template for 'Batman' and simply adjusted it for his comic-book picture. Madonna isn't bad here either, simply because she's pretending to be Marilyn Monroe, something she'd been wanting to do all of her career to that point. And the rogues gallery here is perhaps second in quality only to the aforementioned DC Caped Crusader. In retrospect, that perhaps was the picture's weakest link--no true criminal really dominated proceedings and stuck in one's mind. Had they tried the time-tested hookup of two baddies to get in Dick's hair just enough to rile him, it may have worked better. Still one of the most enjoyable, and underrated, comic-book pictures of the past three decades.