For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Expected more

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Jeez, there's really nothing good to say about this movie. Dean Martin was always an inept actor, even when he had good scripts, which he did not have here. I have seen Sharon Tate in a few good roles, but I think her voice was looped by other actresses. Nancy Kwan was good in a few other roles, but she has nothing to work with here. Elke Sommer, often wooden, gives the best performance, oddly enough, and looks wonderful.But the real problem is the rotten script. Random explosions, inexplicable car chases, unconvincing fights. None of it very good, and most of it repeated pointlessly in multiple scenes.Is it bad enough to be funny-good? I think it's just bad. I think the producers wanted it to be a parody of the James Bond movies, without realizing that the Bond movies were already self-parodies.

The movie is fantastic in its execution, not its substance, but it was never intended to be serious. The movie has all the glamor, and opulence that only American movies seems to be able to deliver. The choice of color, the character, and of course the girls.Dean Martin's Matt Helm was a product of the swinging '60s, and it's a beautiful movie in its own way. I wish that the modern movies had more of this kind of opulence to its style. Why not live a little like the way these people did ?It's intentionally silly, but if you take away the silly it still has the glamor like nothing you see these days. The movie is worth seeing for this alone.Elke Sommer, and Sharon Tate were beautiful, and we don't see beauties like this anymore either.

The opening montage with a zippy title track, followed by Hugo Montenegro's sophisticated Jazzy score score which perfectly matches the introduction to Nigel Green and Elke Sommers characters, followed by the Heist and another rousing score is an opening sequence that has stayed with me for years.The fourth film in this 60's spy series is my favourite, although the first 'The Silencers' is a stronger film and is rightly considered the best of the series.After the nadir that was 'The Ambushers' ( I only watched that once ) the Wrecking Crew is an attempt rein in the excesses of spy spoofs, but its only partially successful.The final instalment runs out of steam, picks up speed, de-rails , gets back on track, only to miss its stop - making the Wrecking Crew a very Uneven journey.Curiously Dean Martin's portrayal is one of the weak point in this film. Don't get me wrong - he is fun to watch but he scratches, mugs and double takes his way through every scene where he could have been more focused. This is fine if your part of a double act but as the focal point Martin's Matt Helm should have been more the hero than the unwitting bystander ( the clue is in the surname ) You can't ignore the real life tragedy that overshadowed this film and perhaps this is why 'The Wrecking Crew' feels like a post-script to the glamour films of the 1960s . The style of this film is curiously muted (thankfully) and with the exception of Martin and Tate all the characters look like they belong in a darker, more serious spy movie. This is underscored by a tragic and unwavering loyalty Elke Sommer and Nancy Kwan's characters have for Nigel Green's baddie - suggesting a fixation that goes beyond material wealth. Sharon Tate's character by contrast is clearly the innocent, unaware of the darker undertones that infiltrate this movie. This mixture of innocence and awkwardness attempts to recapture a similar part played by Stella Stevens in 'The Silencers' but isn't very successful - although it does give Dean Martin an excuse for some good comedy one liners. The Wrecking Crew is far from a train wreck. It's also far from a rollicking good adventure. It is a comedy spy spoof that features a good score , nice performances from the main baddies, fight sequences that hint at the kung-fu craze that would soon follow and a fun if misguided performance from Dean Martin.

This certainly isn't up to THE SILENCERS (1966), being too derivative in nature and uneven in tone, but hardly the terrible film most critics would have one believe (though I still give them the benefit of the doubt with respect to the remaining two entries in the Matt Helm series – which I couldn't get my hands on and, consequently, haven't watched).As I said, many of the elements found in the original film (with which it shares director Karlson) are repeated here – from Dean Martin's tuneful (and humorous) interjections to the gadgets provided by I.C.E. (which seem to have become progressively sillier!) and even the love/hate relationship between Helm and his stunning but 'klutzy' partner (played by the ill-fated Sharon Tate: this was her penultimate film). As a matter of fact, the glamorous nature of her character is kept under wraps during the film's first half – allowing the triumvirate of femme fatales (Elke Sommer, Nancy Kwan and Tina Louise) to take center-stage – but Tate's subsequent unforeseen blossoming is all the more effective because of this reason! The villain is also ideally cast: Nigel Green, who wisely opts to play it straight; the character of Helm's superior, then, is now played by John Larch (who even gets in on the action towards the end!). While there's the usual array of car chases and gun-toting action, this entry provides some novelty with its burst of karate fighting (featuring a debuting Chuck Norris and choreographed by none other than Bruce Lee, though he seems to have been caught on an off-day as these mostly come off as lackluster here – including a duel between Tate and Kwan, which was a good idea in itself!). As expected, the film generates considerable steam (notably the bedroom scenes Martin shares with gypsy Louise – whom Green has dropped in favor of chic Sommer and who has now decided to spill the beans about his involvement in a bullion robbery from a moving train – and, later, the scheming Sommer herself); however, the fact that Tate would be brutally murdered within months makes her presence arresting – even when indulging in slapstick situations (down to imitating Oliver Hardy from WAY OUT WEST [1937] by unwittingly walking through deceptively shallow waters!).The fourth entry in the "Matt Helm" series does seem to have managed a more elaborate climax than THE SILENCERS, as the action starts in Kwan's club "The House Of Seven Joys" (at one point, intended as the film's title – the current credits are even accompanied by a song about it!) – which includes a secret revolving panel leading straight to Green's château (this location is then destroyed largely through Tate's clumsiness!), continues with a helicopter chase (built on the spot by Martin, whose parts he conveniently keeps in the booth of his car!) and finally relocates to a speeding train (armed with a trapdoor!) being driven by the fleeing Green. Another solid element here, indeed the best thing about the entire film, is Hugo Montenegro's catchy score (it was pure coincidence that I watched two thrillers scored by him and featuring members of the Rat Pack in quick succession!). Still, there are a number of surefire gags involving Kwan's name (Yu-rang – "No, I didn't", replies Helm at her formal introduction to him!), Martin reversing Tate's victory sign in exasperation when she interrupts his dalliance with Sommer, and Tate borrowing one of Martin's exploding hankies (which she then throws away in panic in the direction of his car, naturally wrecking it completely in the process!).Again, the ending promotes an upcoming Matt Helm adventure to be entitled THE RAVAGERS – but which was never made given increasingly diminishing returns at the box-office (though Helm did return in the form of a TV series starring Anthony Franciosa)! Tying this up with the Frank Sinatra/Tony Rome vehicle LADY IN CEMENT (1968), which preceded my viewing of THE WRECKING CREW, there was talk at the time of bringing together the two Rat Packers once again in the guise of Helm and Rome – but the idea was subsequently dropped and, in any case, the mood of each individual series is so different that it's hard to see how they could have coalesced convincingly