The Beaver

2011 Muppet prequel

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Some antisemitic guy gets depressed and starts talking to and through a the titular puppet that he found in a dumpster. His family has a problem with it.

If Hesher is an after-school special with a bad-boy edge and a ton of curse words, The Beaver could be described as an after-school special with a puppet. There was a lot of potential here actually with a story that could have had some real depth and could have packed a real emotional punch. Unfortunately, it's very poorly written and doesn't feel fully realized. And I'll have to admit that I feel a little cheated since I went into this thing thinking we'd have scene after scene of Mel Gibson making love to his own hand. But that's likely my fault. Mel Gibson is dynamic in this, a chance to show some versatility. His character's got all sorts of angles, and good old Mel handles them all in a way that doesn't make the character as dopey as a character with a beaver puppet should be. And that's important. When the story focuses on his character and his family, this is actuallypretty good. But there are tangents, and when we move to the subplots involving his oldest son's love interest etcetera, this fumbles.

It's a shame this wasn't a box office smash because I could spend hours playing with them. Probably inappropriately.