Boris and Natasha: The Movie is a 1992 live-action movie based on the Rocky and Bullwinkle villains Boris Badenov (Dave Thomas) and Natasha Fatale (Sally Kellerman).
The plot involves Fearless Leader being after a time-reversal chip being made in America. After wanting to send Agent X on the mission, Agent X suggests sending Boris and Natasha first as patsies. While on their mission, Natasha becomes fascinated with America, especially after learning from neighbor Toots that in America, women are treated equally with men. Natasha eventually becomes a fashion model and celebrity, and there's some development of a romance between Boris and Natasha.
Directed by Charles Martin Smith, otherwise known as Toad from American Graffiti. Also included in the cast are Thomas's former SCTV castmates Andrea Martin and John Candy.
See also The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, another (mostly) live-action adaptation of the same source material.
This movie provides examples of:
- Anti-Hero: Boris and Natasha.
- The Artifact: This movie was originally intended for a theatrical release before being on Showtime instead, but the opening scene has the narrator referring to the movie tickets.
- Ascended Fangirl: Kellerman was a huge fan of the original cartoons and helped produce the show as well as starring in it.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Boris gives one to the narrator.
- Blessed with Suck: When Paulovitch realized that the time reversal chip could cause trouble if fallen into the wrong hands, he tried to have it destroyed, only for it's own effects to save it from being destroyed.
- Casting Gag: June Foray plays a woman who's a fan of Natasha, saying that she feels like they have something in common.
- Celebrity Paradox: As they become popular, a Hollywood agent at a party tries to introduce Natasha to Sally Kellerman, but Natasha flees before the introductions are made.
- Chekhov's Gun: More like Checkov's dynamite stick.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: One of the government officials who welcomes Boris and Natasha to America happens to actually be the head of an auto insurance company, and wants to prevent the time-reversal chip from being mass marketed.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check/ Reed Richards Is Useless: Averted. Professor Paulovitch invents a time-reversal chip which detects danger, sending people a few seconds back in time before the disasters happened. When he figured this would be a problem if the invention fell into the wrong hands, he tried to have it destroyed, only for it to keep reversing and saving itself. Paulovitch then decides to make many copies and send them to every country, in the hopes of ending war and bringing peace to the world.
- Darkerand Edgier: Unlike the Rocky & Bullwinkle movie made in 2000 the film has a few scenes and contains foul language some on screen deaths and there's even a scene Boris appears to at strip club.
- Evil Twin: Professor Anton Paulovitch has an evil twin brother, Kreeger.
- Foreshadowing: "Aren't there two a of them in there? For a moment, I thought I saw three."
- Good Is Bad And Bad Is Good: At one point, Boris says "It's good to be bad". "It's Good to Be Bad" is also the title of a song that plays in the movie, Natasha even says "you are so bad, you're good!"
- Inkblot Test: When Boris and Natasha defect, a psychiatrist shows them some inkblots. They see a bomb explosion, a machine gun attack at a small embassy, and a little puppy with floppy ears...carrying a letter bomb into a small embassy.
- Jeopardy! Thinking Music: Plays while they wait for results from authorities questioning them to determine whether they really have defected to America.
- Lampshade Hanging: The narrator goes on at length about the various problems with We Are Not Going Through That Again and how naive the leads are being. Boris responds by telling him to shut up.
- Landmarking the Hidden Base: Paulovitch has a laboratory inside Mount Rushmore that is accessed through Abraham Lincoln's nose.
- Latex Perfection: Boris and Natasha's neighbors are revealed to be Secret Agents Moose and Squirrel. Assuming the implications that they are Rocky and Bullwinkle (and not some other enemies who they refer to by those names), they clearly look human, with no signs of them wearing disguises. Although they do state they were "surgically altered once again."
- Lie Detector: When the government is questioning them, they have to take a lie detector test. They lie, due to the fact that they are sticking to their stories no matter what.
- Medium Awareness: "Boris! We've blown back clear to begink of movie!''
- Mexican Stand Off: The climax has the heroes and villains pointing guns at each other. Boris realizes that the only way everyone can survive is if he uses dynamite to blow up all the time reversal chips.
- The Reveal: Boris and Natasha's neighbors end up being Secret Agents Moose and Squirrel, "Surgically altered once again".
- Agent X is Willie, the government worker who convinced the skeptical authorities to play along with Boris and Natasha's claims to defect, and the man following him is Kreeger Paulovitch, evil twin of Professor Paul Paulovitch.
- Villain Protagonist: Boris And Natasha definitively count as this.
- We Are Not Going Through That Again: At the climax of the movie, Boris uses his last stick of dynamite to destroy an entire crate full of the time-reversal chips, which rewinds time back to the beginning of the movie. At which point he and Natasha decide that they don't want to go through all that grief again, so they hock the Macguffin they had with them in the first scene and use the cash to retire to Tahiti.
