WoW movies reviews: Re-Animated, and A Year Without a Santa Claus.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Yes, buckos, 2 reviews.
Disclaimer: Both these are made for TV movies.


Re-Animated
Let us start on a positive note shall we. Re-Animated, debuted this past Friday, on Cartoon Network. It is CN's first attempt at an original live action movie. It is rated TV PG.

The movie is about 12 year old Jimmy Roberts, a 10th grade loser, a pushover who cannot say no to anyone or anything. He is constantly taken advantage of, even by his friends an family.

He lives at home with his father who more of a kid than he is (brilliantly played by Bill Dwyer), his mother who is an Astronaunt, and his green skinned alien adopted sister who mom found on one of her space travels (yeah, the move is very weird). He is also in love with his best friend older sister, who he gets too nervous to have conversations with.

For a school field trip Jimmy's class heads to Gollyworld (the basic equivalent of Disney World) and while there, he takes a dare to try to find Milt Appleday's (Walt Disney's) frozen brain hidden somewhere in the ride Tux's Artic Adverture. When he finds the supposed area it is in, he runs into a mysterious caped moustached man (who is Milt's son, Sonny), who scares Jimmy. As Jimmy flees he is hit by a theme park train.

He ends up in the theme park hospital needing a brain transplant, luckily, Milt's brain is in the possesion of Milt's longtime doctor and they precede to tranplant the brain into Jimmy. The operation is a success, the only side effect is that Jimmy now sees all of Appleday's famous cartoon creations in real life, and they interact with him.

Sonny has been running the company into the ground, and when the board of Gollyworld finds out Jimmy has Milt's brain, they install him as president of the company. The remainder of the movies is a madcap romp as Sonny tries to steal the brain back, and Jimmy lets his position go to his head.

While not being the greatest movie of all time, this movie was very funny, and I enjoyed immensely. It reminded quite a bit of the old cult classic Better Off Dead only with a younger cast. It, like those movies employs very surreal characters and situations, in which the characters respond to normally. The villain are also stereotypically over the top, and strange use of Dues Ex Machina is also common place. Interestingly enough there is quite a debate in the internet about this movie. Many of those in the 13 - 18 range hated the movie. My kids loved it, my wife loved it. Perhaps, becuase we grew up on movies like Better Off . .

The acting is spot on. Everyone plays their character to a T. From Jimmy (Dominic Janes), to Fred Willard as Appleday (Willard is a comic genius). I found myself laughing out loud for much of the movie. CN has a tendency to overplay this stuff so check your listings.

A Year Without A Santa Claus
Wow. I am not refering here to the Bass and Rankin Classic, but the butchering live action debacle that debuted on NBC last night. My God, this has to be the worst X-Mas special I have seen in a VERY long time. There was nothing good about it. It seemed like NBC owed a favor to someone and fronted some "stars" and money to have a producers kid to make this crap. This 2 HOUR fiasco not only had an atrocious plot line, the acting felt like it was all done in one take, and the actors just wanted to get the hell out of there. The scenery smacked of 1940's movie making, and North Pole was more realistic in the original Claymation.

Again, based upon the Bass and Rankin special and the 1956 book by Phyllis McGinley, this version takes a very liberal reading of the story. Gone are almost all the songs that made the first one famous (except of course from the Heat Miser/Snow Miser theme). Mrs. Claus has turned into nothing more than a doting nagging wife, and her role has been greatly reduced. The whole thing was awful, and not even awful in a good way. I felt 2 hours of my life was wasted by this tripe.

And freaking John Goodman. Dude, I know you do the voices in the Dunkin Donuts commercial but man, are they paying you in donuts? My god, the man has to weigh close to 500lbs and I am surprised he has not dropped dead. It was painful to watch him move around, and sweat in this fiasco (yeah, the makeup was good too). He struggled to act throught this, struggled physically. He can't talk anymore, there is so much fat crushing his mouth. I thought at first he was wearing a fat suit as Santa, but I was wrong. I mean look at him. I got him in the death pool.

I am Malach and there will be no year without a Santa Claus.