#94 - Kazaam

While I did mildly enjoyed Daddy Day Camp, in retrospect, I may not have given it a 5, as it has affected the way I now watch movies. By that, I mean that I now get annoyed with touchy feely scenes. You know, the ones where they want to teach you a lesson by having the soft music in the background as one character is saying something important to another? Well, as soon as the first such scene happened in Kazaam, I rolled my eyes, and started to keep count. In the end, there were 6 soft music scenes in this 90 minutes of garbage.


You know, I'm still waiting for that "it's so bad, it's good" movie. This... was not it. If we had more than one turn-it-off-now options, I would have used one on Kazaam. Not only was the acting horrible, and no character was likeable, and no joke was funny, and the direction was awful, but none of the events were even remotely believeable. That came to a peak at the end of the movie when the building where our protogonist is goes up in flames. Mom's boyfriend who is conviniently a firefighter who conviniently happens to be at the scene conviniently saves the boy who conviniently just fell into his arms. But that's not the unbelievable part. The fact that a firefighter would walk into a building engulfed in smoke and flames without a facemask on. All he had was his hardhat with a shield on it. Then, when he walks out with the boy who I don't recall having a single smudge of dirt on his face, neither are greated by anyone. He just walks over to the mom, and that's that. More soft music, and more touchy feely crap. One would think peremedics would want to check the kid out. Guess not since he's squeeky clean.

In watching these bad movies, I keep trying to find what could have made these movies better. Kazaam would have been better if they would have simply thrown the script in the garbage can after reading it. No, but seriously, I am serious. Nothing could have saved this movie unless you change absolutely everything about it. Just for fun, I'll list what I can remember off the top of my head:

1) Don't allow Shaq to rap, or even better yet,
2) Don't cast Shaq
3) Don't make the main character (played by Francis Capra) such a bratty kid you want to kick in the ass.
4) Having a genie come out of a "boombox" is a very bad idea.
5) If you are going to have your genie come out of a boombox, make sure you show us how he got there in the first place. Don't just show his lamp falling off the table in the opening credit and then go dark as we hear a crashing sound and expect us to think it makes sense when he gets out of a radio.
6) Have your characters have some sort of consistency. Showing a character's growth and change is one thing, but they were flipping around like fish out of water at every turn of the movie.
7) Don't just add characters you don't plan on developing whatsoever just to add a bit of dilema to the story and then all of a sudden make them an important part of the movie.
8) Don't make this stupid movie! Ever!

I just can't be more clear about how I think this movie never should have been made. Is it the worse movie I've seen on this list so far? No, that still belongs to Bolero. It will have to be something really special to ever dethrown that thing in my eyes. But it's pretty darn close. AND IT'S ONLY #94!!! Honestly, what have I gotten us into?

IMDb Rating: 2.5
JF's Rating: 2 - But only because I want to leave myself some wiggle room.
Chris' Rating: 3

JF's Turn off point: It was quite early. I can't remember the time. It's been over a week since we watched the movie. It was so damn bad that I couldn't even bear to think of writing about it. I died a little inside writing this blog.
Chris' Turn off point: She had none. I don't get her. She wants to see how it ends. Really? I think it should have ended in the garbage!