William Shatner Played Himself In This Eddie Murphy Comedy That Critics Tore To Shreds

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. is, in my opinion, the greatest studio ever. Recent buyout debacles aside, this is the studio that gave us "Blade Runner," the great films of Stanley Kubrick, Elia Kazan's "A Streetcar Named Desire," and established the superhero blockbusters with Richard Donner's "Superman." But even Harry, Jack, Albert, and Sam Warner's storied studio has churned out some tripe in its time, and 2002 action comedy "Showtime" is one example. At least, according to critics who savaged this Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro-led buddy cop outing, despite it featuring a delightful cameo from the great William Shatner, playing himself. 

The comedy debuted following a nice little late-'90s run for Murphy, who headlined "The Nutty Professor," "Dr. Dolittle," the criminally overlooked "Bowfinger," and voiced Donkey in "Shrek" all in the span of five years. Unfortunately, 2002 marked a turning point for the actor, who starred in not only "Showtime," but perhaps the biggest box office bomb of all time: "The Adventures of Pluto Nash."

Though it seemed like a hit in comparison, Murphy's cop comedy with De Niro wasn't much better, making just $77.7 million on an $85 million budget. Critics also excoriated film, with Jessica Winter of the Village Voice summing up the general tenor when she described "Showtime" as "90 punitive minutes of eardrum-dicing gunplay, screeching-metal smashups, and flaccid odd-couple sniping." 

The thing is, viewed from the streaming age, "Showtime" is sort of quaint in its own way. What's more, Shatner's cameo is a highlight. It's not exactly laugh-out-loud hilarious, but the "Star Trek" legend's interactions with Murphy and De Niro are amusing in a way that makes the film seem less a disaster and more an overlooked curio from a time when our pre-Netflix-addled brains perhaps didn't know how good we had it.

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"Showtime" was directed by Tom Dey, who at the time was coming off the relatively successful "Shanghai Noon." That Western/Kung Fu mashup similarly paired two seemingly mismatched leads in Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan for some buddy comedy antics. "Showtime," however, shifted the action from the 19th Century to the modern day, and starred Robert De Niro in a role he should have turned down as stern LAPD detective Mitch Preston. 

After shooting a news camera during a drug bust gone bad, Preston is forced to star in a police reality TV show in order to stave off legal proceedings. He isn't exactly thrilled at the prospect, and making matters worse he's teamed up with Eddie Murphy's officer Trey Sellars, an aspiring actor who has failed the department's investigator program multiple times. Sellars impresses producer/director Chase Renzi (Rene Russo), and even provides the name for the show with his catchphrase, "Showtime." William Shatner is then brought in to coach the two policemen in the art of cop show action, drawing on his real-life experience playing the titular sergeant in real-life procedural "T. J. Hooker." 

As De Niro's cop trudges through Shatner's cop show bootcamp with barely concealed disdain, Murphy's patrolman has the time of his life, excelling at everything from kicking doors to "hood jumping" — i.e. leaping on the hood of a car with the appropriate flair. What makes it fun to watch is that Shatner is clearly having a ball, and regardless of what the critics think, De Niro's deadpan delivery works as a foil to both Shatner and Murphy's giddiness. It's fun! Sadly, critics didn't see it that way.

Warner Bros.

"Showtime" occupies a space somewhere between buddy cop parody and actual buddy cop movie, and judging by the critical response, it didn't manage to convince anyone it was very good at either — even with William Shatner's fun cameo.

Roger Ebert bestowed a couple of stars on "Showtime," conceding that the movie is actually "funny in the opening scenes," even if it then "forgets why it came to play." The issue for Ebert was that while the movie "start[ed] out making fun of cop buddy cliches," it ultimately "end[ed] up trapped in them." He wasn't the only reviewer to make that observation, with Eric Harrison of the Houston Chronicle noting how "the film's ample use of cliches don't come across as clever — they're just cliches."

All of that resulted in a disastrous 25% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, and with the film grossing almost $10 million less than it cost to make, and earning two Golden Raspberry nominations (though it's long been time to retire the Razzies) "Showtime" was doomed to be forgotten. Still, if you revisit the film today it's actually not as bad as you might think, especially in an age where Kevin Hart's "Lift" dominates the Netflix charts.