1996 Christmas comedy
Rating: 3/20 (Jen: 2/20)
Plot: A guy with a thick Eastern European accent and a mailman search Minnesota for a popular action figure.
I first watched this movie on an airplane, and I've always claimed that it's one of the most painful movie-watching experiences of my entire life. I haven't revisited the film since, partially because I suspected a second viewing would reveal it to be not quite awful enough to be in a "most awful movie ever" discussion, and I sort of like listing it among the worst movies I've ever seen when I approach strangers and share my list of worst movies I've ever seen with them. And there's a part of me that wonders if I'm being a little harsh with my 3/20 rating. Then again, I'm one point higher than my wife who listens to contemporary country music and therefore has to have a higher tolerance for crap than me. Also, this movie really is every bit as bad as I remember it.
I've written about Arnold Schwarzennegger's acting outside action films before. He's as bad here, not only completely unbelievable as the businessman and family guy or consumer of plastic superheroes that he's supposed to be but completely unbelievable as a human being. Arnold's idea of comedy seems to be making ridiculous faces and saying all his lines loudly and bemusedly. And I honestly don't see much difference in his performance and Tommy Wiseau's performance in The Room, and if you've seen that performance, you know I'm talking about some upper-echelon bad acting with a thick Eastern European accent. To make matters worse, he gets some stupid things to say. A repeated line to his mattress (I think?) customers shows a complete lack of comic timing and made me wonder if Arnold was even in on the joke. Actually, it made me question if there was even a joke to be gotten. My favorites:
"Put that cookie down. . .NOW!"
"He maced me!"
"He got two! He got two!"
"This is my ball."
"I'm not a pervert. I was looking for Turbo Man doll."
"Nice doggy."
And yeah, none of those lines look bad on paper (or screen), but Arnold doesn't seem to have any idea how to deliver them. Context disappears when Arnold's character speaks. Actually, I was having trouble figuring out a way to describe his delivery, but that's it. It's almost like he's reading all his lines phonetically or something, and it's just bizarre. And I think I invented a new game to go along with this movie, sort of like a drinking game except we're replacing drinking with stabs to the eye. Every time Arnold says "Turbo Man," stab yourself in the eye.
Nobody else is any good either. Jake "Anakin Skywalker" Lloyd might be the best actor in the thing, a few years before Episode One, and if that doesn't tell you everything you need to know, there's nothing else I can say. Sinbad snarls every single one of his lines, and Phil Hartman spends the movie looking like he is regretting his decision to play such an unlikable character. They're all unlikable characters actually. Arnold's wife, played by Rita Wilson, and the son are impossible to like after you see them fail to recognize that it's the paterfamilias of their household in that Turbo Man costume at the end. Arnold himself commits enough crimes to get on Santa's naughty list for the rest of his life, punches a reindeer, belches, fights elves. You name it. And he's a terrible father and an even worse driver. Sinbad flips people off. And that might be the thing I dislike most about this movie. Arnold is unlikable, but I think I'm supposed to root for him. Sinbad is unlikable, and I'm not supposed to root for him because he's the bad guy. However, is there really any difference with the two characters? They both act inappropriately, and you could make the argument that Arnold's character is even worse. Why are we ok with either of them winning?
A quick aside: The MacGuffin--completely unbelievable. You're telling me the kid's got Turbo Man (stab in the eye) pajamas and Turbo Man (stab in the eye) cereal but doesn't have an action figure? Turbo, please.
There's my other main problem with this movie--it's just so mean-spirited. There's no way I would be happy with my children watching this. It reeks of capitalistic greed, and although they try their best to squeeze this father/son relationship in there, it's pretty thin. It all clashes so violently with what Christmas is supposed to be about. If it was as funny as something like Bad Santa or The Ref, we could forgive it, but the comedy is clumsy and the fun is almost profoundly absent. The funniest part of the movie might have been where Hartman says "Balthazar" in a sad way, and when that's the funniest part of your movie, your movie isn't funny at all. Laughable reindeer effects during a chase scene through a house and a lengthy chasing-after-a-ball scene in the Mall of America were both not funny in ways that should be considered crimes, but they didn't know when to end.
Well, I'll confess something: The funniest part of the movie was when an elf was punched and flew far across a room into a wall. No, what happened on the screen wasn't funny at all, but my wife's reaction--"Oh, my."--was hilarious. She sounded so defeated. I've seen my wife unhappy a lot of times in the twenty years we've been together. In fact, I've made her unhappy a lot of times. I don't know if I've ever heard more unhappiness in her voice than I did when she responded to that elf flying across the room.
One thing I noticed: There are a ton of shots of extras reaching to Arnold and Sinbad's shenanigans. It made me uncomfortable for some reason. I'm wondering what percentage of them got excited and said, "That's me!" or tell people that they're in this movie opposed to the percentage who are a little too embarrassed by the whole thing.
At one point, a character refers to the "end of civilization." I wouldn't go far enough to call this the end of civilization. But this is bad enough that I would still tell people that it's in my top-ten most painful movies of all time. And you can trust me because I watch a lot of really bad movies.
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