A GNOME NAMED GNORM (1990)
Article 4461 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-26-2014
Directed by Stan Winston
Featuring Anthony Michael Hall, Jerry Orbach, Claudia Christian
Country: USA
What it is: Action fantasy

When a rookie cop bungles a sting operation, he discovers that the man responsible for his failure can be identified by an unexpected witness – a gnome that has emerged from the underground to recharge a crystal.

Well, I will say this much; this action cop adventure with a fantasy twist isn’t appreciably worse than I though it would be. However, it’s not appreciably better either. It’s one of those movies where you wait for the Gnorm to start making off-color comments, because you know that’s just the sort of “cool” thing that movies like this go for, and, sure enough, once Gnorm meets the female cop, we start to learn the Gnome terms for body parts. The rest is pretty standard stuff indeed, and the only time I was really amused is when the hero uses his standing as a policeman to take over a vehicle to give pursuit, he opts for a hearse leading a funeral procession. In a sense, I’m grateful that the movie wasn’t so irritating it was painful; it’s just one of those movies that has no surprises and leaves no real impressions. And I’m also grateful that I was able to resist peppering this review with words that began with ‘N’ so I could add a ‘G’ in front of them.