★ 6 / 10
Good movie, might watch again, but hard to
Kamurai
Good movie, might watch again, but hard to recommend. This is a weird movie. Not only do you get a stop motion like imaginary monkey as a character, you get…
Good movie, might watch again, but hard to recommend.
This is a weird movie. Not only do you get a stop motion like imaginary monkey as a character, you get Brendan Fraser acting like he thinks it acts, an other-world for the dead and imaginary alike as well as Whoopie Goldberg as Death. Oh, and Dave Foley naked.
The story itself, an imaginary character taking over its creator's body for some nefarious purpose, is actually really good. The execution just isn't fantastic the entire time, particularly the 3rd act. When a movie starts good and ends weak, it leaves you with a poor memory of it.
Ultimately, it was an enjoyable, but it could have been a lot better, and there are plenty of better movies to watch.
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★ 6 / 10
Not Henry Selick's best, but a striking piece of work nonetheless
DavidSim240183
Henry Selick is one of the most underrated filmmakers at work in Hollywood today. He hasn't many features under his belt, but that's because of the effort he…
Henry Selick is one of the most underrated filmmakers at work in Hollywood today. He hasn't many features under his belt, but that's because of the effort he invests in his projects. His films take years to complete. Selick's trademark as a director is his love of stop-motion animation, where hand-crafted figures are manipulated an inch at a time. Its a lengthy, time-consuming process that requires a great deal of patience, but in all the films he's made, his perseverance has paid off, and he's turned out some truly stunning work.
Although The Nightmare Before Christmas is credited as a Tim Burton film, it was directed by Selick. Together they created a breathtaking world, unlike any I've ever seen before or since. Selick then moved on to the adaptation of James and the Giant Peach, another excellent film. Both were box-office flops sadly, and Selick continues to struggle to find funding for his films as a result. And now we have Monkeybone, a film that attempts to merge stop-motion with live-action.
Of Selick's films so far, Monkeybone feels the least satisfying. Maybe because it doesn't quite have the intelligence he brought to his previous work. This is pitched at a much more juvenile level. Brendan Fraser plays Stu Miley, a cartoonist who is the creator of Monkeybone, a wacky wisecracking chimp. After Stu gets in a car crash, he slips into a coma.
And winds up in a bizarre buffer-zone between the land of the living and the dead. Populated by strange creatures of all kinds, even Stu's creation Monkeybone is here as a nightclub act. If Stu ever wants to wake up, he has to get an exit pass from Death (Whoopi Goldberg) to return to the waking world. Monkeybone helps him get one, but double-crosses him at the last moment, uses the pass to escape, wakes up in full control of Stu's body, where he wreaks havoc.
There's quite a clever idea at the heart of Monkeybone. A figment of your imagination made flesh that tries to take over your life. But although Henry Selick can work marvels when it comes to the animated world, he seems less sure of himself when it comes to live action. When Selick directed James and the Giant Peach, the stop-motion scenes were wonderful, and carried by considerable charm and energy. But he bookended the film with live-action, and its clearly a medium he's not as comfortable in. Because Monkeybone relies on a lot of live-action, the film suffers as a result.
A lot of the live-action scenes tend to degenerate into slapstick farce. An approach that would work fine in animation, but less so in live-action. Brendan Fraser is well suited to this type of material, and he plays the part of Monkeybone with a lot of enthusiasm, but I am starting to get a bit fed up of this kind of shtick that Fraser stars in, because its beginning to seem like the only kind of thing he can do.
The most interesting aspects of Monkeybone are inside Stu's mind, where his consciousness is trapped in Downtown, a sort of waystation for lost souls. This is the part of the film that really comes alive, because Downtown's an extraordinary, eye-popping piece of set-design.
Its filled with so many details I'm not sure where to begin in describing it. Its like a lunatic carnival if lorded over by Tim Burton. And the way Selick merges stop-motion animated creatures with live actors is quite remarkable. There are too many bizarre creatures to keep track of. Cyclops'. Yellow bulls. Giant sized wasps. But its just as astonishing as HalloweenTown, and even occasionally surpasses that inspired creation through sheer invention.
The human cast is OK. Rose McGowan lends fine support as a catgirl who lives in Downtown. The sight of her in a catsuit is worth the price of admission alone! And Whoopi Goldberg makes a nicely exasperated Death.
But Monkeybone is less than the sum of its parts. Its a film that doesn't go far enough. And substitutes crude toilet humour when the invention runs out. A failing that works against the film is the character of Monkeybone himself. He's not really an interesting character. He's just some obnoxious chimp who looks like he's wandered in from another film.
Sadly, Monkeybone was another flop for Selick. Granted I was a little disappointed with it, especially when compared to Selick's previous work. Even if it has moments of real inspired lunacy, its just not up to the high standards of Henry Selick, and only seems to add a further nail into the coffin of his flagging career. And he's a man who really deserves much better.
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