#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!

#96 - Alien From L.A.

It finally arrived, and we were so excited that we watched it twice. I'm not joking, I'm being serious. One of the rules was that we had to have no distractions when we watched the movies, or else it wouldn't really mean anything. Christie came over, but brought her two munchkins with her (4 and 6), so when we tried to watch the movie, we really weren't into it much. Her 6 year old didn't like the music very much, so we were a little worried about her there, and her 4 year old loved the movie so much he was asking questions every 15 seconds about it. Then, there was the fact that I fell asleep for 10-15 minutes of it, and my sister came to visit at some point during the movie. So, at about 75% through the movie, we shut it off, and decided to try again another day.

That other day happened to be the following evening, and Christie complained that she hadn't fallen asleep the first time and had paid attention. Complain all she wants, she had to watch all 90 minutes of it the second time around. Her question asking 4 year old joined us again for round 2, and honestly, he made the movie more interesting.

So, the story is about a girl that goes by the name of Wanda Saknussemm played by model Kathy Ireland who can't pronounce Saknussemm. Wanda is girl who wears really big glasses and wears baggy clothes which apparently makes her ugly. She fears any kind of adventure (she is scared to fly and gets car sick, so no trips for her), and let's not forget her annoying voice. Why oh why did they have to give her that annoying voice (I sure hope for her it wasn't her real voice). To me, it would seem pretty basic that you would want your main character to be at least somewhat likeable to have a successful story.

Apparently, this is supposed to be some sort of spoof about Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. To be honest, it seems to have more links to The Wizard of Oz, including Wanda stating that she's no longer in Kansas after falling down a very deep hole.

So, our flying fearing heroine goes to Africa to find her father she hasn't seen in 10 years. She flies there during a storm in what appears to be a small cargo plane. Heck, if I was scared of flying, and going from Los Angeles to Africa (not sure where in Africa) I wouldn't go by a big commercial jumbo jet, no, I would go by this sketchy looking plane instead. Brilliant!

Down the rabbit hole she goes, and into the long lost city of Atlantis where her father is held prisoner. The fun starts as we start to realize that the same actors are being used for multiple roles in the movie. Now, this would be fine if they were parallel roles from one world to the next, but they aren't. I mean, one guys plays the cook where Wanda works, and the supreme decision maker in Atlantis. Huh? Oh, and he also plays a bartender which neither Christie, nor I picked up on that. Some play as many as four characters. One actor (Janet Du Plessis) actually plays two important characters, and while one could see the reasoning for those two characters being played by the same actor, she also plays a minor role as a claims officer. Again, huh?

The music in this movie is just awful. There are tons of chase scenes, and sometimes the characters stop and they have a "moment". I can buy that if the music would keep you in tense mood, but no, it goes all soft and lovey dovey. Yes, the pace is that bad. Plus, add in Christie's own pet peeve of weird misplaced camera angles, and you have a movie where you have no idea what you're supposed to be feeling... especially when you don't know if you like the annoying talking heroine.

Overall, the movie is watchable and would have been a decent film had they not made Wanda so annoying, and had they had money to cast more actors.

IMDb Rating: 2.5

JF's Rating: 4 (I rate it just above Police Academy 7)
Christie's Rating: 4 (She rates it just bellow Police Academy 7)

Turn off point: Once again, there were no point during this movie where we were clawing our eyes out and wanted to run out of the room. It's the type of movie that while annoyed at it's badness, you just want to see it through.

Already having access to Kazaam, we will be on track next time... joys!

#95 - Daddy Day Camp

We cheated a little this week. Alien From L.A. was a really hard movie to find, and we are currently waiting for it via e-bay. So, instead of just waiting around, we figured we'd skip it and come back to it when it arrived. So Daddy Day Camp it was.

Both Chris and I cringed when we saw this one on the list. Well, we cringed at almost every movie on the list, but you know, I have to tell a story here, so just amuse me. We all know how Eddie Murphy has been doing bad movie after bad movie, so when he decided to pass on this sequel to his smash hit (I kid) Daddy Day Care, you have to wonder just how bad the script was.

Instead, Cuba Gooding Jr. reprises the role of "Daddy" and after watching the preview for this movie, I was honestly expecting the worst. By worse, I don't mean Bolero worse, as nothing will ever have as profound a negative effect on my life as this movie has. And if you don't want to just take my word for it, ask Christie, I think it affected her even more. That movie makes me angry now, but really, I should learn to let go...

So Daddy Day Camp starts off with unfunny jokes in an over the top situation at the day care where all of Hell's kids come to stay while Lucifer goes to work. So, in the beginning it appears that it is going to be a real bore of a movie loaded with bad slapstick comedy. But was surprises me as the movie gets going is there are a few memorable moments that honestly made me laugh and smile. Those early chuckles had Christie saying we could no longer be friends. As the film moved along, she warmed up to the idea that this movie wasn't really that terrible.

Yes, we've seen this type of movie a thousand times. Run down camp (or business, or club, or whatever) with a bunch of loveable losers who have to worry about a more successful camp (or business, or club, or whatever) that is trying to buy them out. And of course, there is money issues, and it all comes down to a competition that will make or break our heros' day. I think my favourite part of this film is when there is that initial spark of competition between the two camps. Not because it was clever, or particularly well written. It was the fact that it was at that moment that line that broke Christie was delivered...

"You won't last a month," Lance (played by Lochlyn Munro), the owner of the successful camp says to our hero Charlie. The, all tough looking and with attitude, Lance's son (played by Sean Patrick Flaherty) adds: "Yeah. Thirty-one days. Or 30. Except for February, which stands alone." Granted, that doesn't sound overly funny, but the delivery of the line was spot on. The kid has a few other lines like that which cracked me up. Although, my favourite line was when the dorky kid who is trying to impress the pretty girl starts talking about World of Warcraft, and he states "I'm a Level 40 Blood Elf Druid" when she clearly has no clue what WoW is. Ah, funny.

Movies with so many kids live or die by the casting, and I think Daddy Day Camp did a pretty good job here. The brainy young girl, the nerdy kid with a love guru younger brother, the cute pukey kid, and the smart ass kid of the bad guy all played their parts really well, and honestly, it's these little actors that made the movie watchable for me. But what could have been a decent movie overall was ruined in the last quarter of the movie as there were non-stop hearltfelt scenes with soft music and all. We get it, you're trying to teach us life lessons. Groan! One or maybe two of these moments would have been more than enough. I lost count after 6 or 7.

There was also the climax which was the big competition. Yes, we all know the good guys are going to win, but the director didn't even try to make us feel like they might not. It was very lame and uninteresting to say the least. To be honest, I was enjoying the movie until the sappy stuff started just before the competition which ended up being a bore.

IMDb Rating: 2.5
JF's Rating: 5 (Would have gone as high as 6 had the cut out half of the "emotional" scenes at the end)
Christie's Rating: 5 (She turned around, and realized that compared to what we have seen so far, this one was pretty good)

Turn off point: There were none. Perhaps at the end when it got really boring and you knew what was going to happen and you were watching it on TV you might switch the channel knowing you weren't going to miss anything of importance.

Until next time, let's hope there's an alien in the mailbox.