I said it before and I'll say it again, the words "family comedy" doesn't always have to translate into "lamebrain fluff." Just look at the success of "Shrek" and you'll see what I mean. Now THAT'S a film with wit and intelligence behind its silly humor, and that's why it works for both kids and adults. So I'm no longer going to say, "Hey, it's a family film. What do you expect?" Maybe all you parents out there are willing to lower your cinematic standards to please your young ones, but I sure as hell ain't.
After watching that horrible, disastrous, disgusting, mindless comedy "Good Burger" (and you wonder why children's IQs are getting lower and lower by the second), I promised I would never watch another film produced by Nickelodeon EVER again! Well, being that I'm also an open-minded moviegoer I decided "What the heck?" when I spotted this movie on the racks of my local West Coast Video.
The first thirty minutes are UNBEARABLE!!! I had extreme difficulty watching it straight-through. My thumb was itching for the "Stop" button like you wouldn't believe! Once they introduced the bumbling principal, I almost dropped dead. Is that the biggest cliche in the book or what??? One of my favorite comedies of all time is "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," which involves a dean of students (Jeffrey Students) bumbling around like an ape, but was he stupid? No. He was just clumsy and had very bad luck. Here, we have a stupid principal who bumbles (predictably) around, and the kids throw snowballs at him. I know that kids hate their principals (Hell, I didn't like mine all that much either), but I think it's the portrayal of adults that ticks me off. It's always a cliche in kiddie flicks for the adults to be complete morons, since it's from their point of view. And since they hate principals even more, we have to make that person the biggest idiot on the face of the planet. One of those tired cliches that you just want to beat the hell out of the screenwriters for using.
To add to our list of tired cliches, we have the inevitable romantic subplot. But I will say, that chick who played the love interest was HOT HOT HOT!! Like in all these stories, she's going with this airhead jock who makes you wonder, "What did she see in him in the first place?" And the guy who has a major crush on her (Mark Webber) and supposedly seems invisible to her has this clingy female friend who clicks with him one hundred-percent and has the hots for him, but just doesn't know how to reveal it to him. It's no mystery how this is going to turn out.
One critic made a good point. This is one film where you actually want MORE of Chevy Chase. He makes a few appearances as a competitive TV weatherman. Chase hasn't exactly been in his prime. His last work was a supporting role in the low-budget comedy "Dirty Work" with Norm McDonald and Artie Lange. A movie I still enjoy as a guilty pleasure, but let's face it...it wasn't a box office success, like many of Chevy's previous movies. However, he's still a fine comedian and knows how to deliver a joke. This is one of Chevy's (recent) works, where you're actually begging to see more of him on screen. Chris Elliott wasn't that funny as the Snowplow Man (though I wouldn't exactly blame him), but I appreciate his effort. Elliott is usually the kind of comic actor who can be funny if given a good script, but obnoxious if given a bad one. Here, he's in the borderline. He doesn't try to ham it up as much as, say, he did in that annoying role in "Scary Movie 2." Some of the kids were much more annoying than him. I actually wanted him to run those little ba**ards down with his plow.
OK, enough with the negative. I'm not giving this film a high recommendation, but I found it amazingly innocuous (once it passed the 30-minute mark) for a Nickelodeon-produced flick. Of course, we could've done without that recurring gag involving the fat kid farting (it seems like anytime there's an obese character in a kiddie flick, he has to be the butt--no pun intended--of all the flatulence jokes), but as a general rule I found it to be a surprisingly smooth ride the rest of the way. I still received only the occasional "Ha" as the film continued to progress, but at least I wasn't grumbling like I was at first. All the story arcs are resolved in a predictable manner, but not in a way in which you're torchered by the obvious cliches.
"Snow Day" is not a film I'd recommend for the 18 and older crowd, but if you're an adult with children who eat up this kind of fluff, it's moderately easy to take. Just let the kids watch the first 30 minutes by themselves, then decide to join them on the couch.
My score: 5 (out of 10)
After watching that horrible, disastrous, disgusting, mindless comedy "Good Burger" (and you wonder why children's IQs are getting lower and lower by the second), I promised I would never watch another film produced by Nickelodeon EVER again! Well, being that I'm also an open-minded moviegoer I decided "What the heck?" when I spotted this movie on the racks of my local West Coast Video.
The first thirty minutes are UNBEARABLE!!! I had extreme difficulty watching it straight-through. My thumb was itching for the "Stop" button like you wouldn't believe! Once they introduced the bumbling principal, I almost dropped dead. Is that the biggest cliche in the book or what??? One of my favorite comedies of all time is "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," which involves a dean of students (Jeffrey Students) bumbling around like an ape, but was he stupid? No. He was just clumsy and had very bad luck. Here, we have a stupid principal who bumbles (predictably) around, and the kids throw snowballs at him. I know that kids hate their principals (Hell, I didn't like mine all that much either), but I think it's the portrayal of adults that ticks me off. It's always a cliche in kiddie flicks for the adults to be complete morons, since it's from their point of view. And since they hate principals even more, we have to make that person the biggest idiot on the face of the planet. One of those tired cliches that you just want to beat the hell out of the screenwriters for using.
To add to our list of tired cliches, we have the inevitable romantic subplot. But I will say, that chick who played the love interest was HOT HOT HOT!! Like in all these stories, she's going with this airhead jock who makes you wonder, "What did she see in him in the first place?" And the guy who has a major crush on her (Mark Webber) and supposedly seems invisible to her has this clingy female friend who clicks with him one hundred-percent and has the hots for him, but just doesn't know how to reveal it to him. It's no mystery how this is going to turn out.
One critic made a good point. This is one film where you actually want MORE of Chevy Chase. He makes a few appearances as a competitive TV weatherman. Chase hasn't exactly been in his prime. His last work was a supporting role in the low-budget comedy "Dirty Work" with Norm McDonald and Artie Lange. A movie I still enjoy as a guilty pleasure, but let's face it...it wasn't a box office success, like many of Chevy's previous movies. However, he's still a fine comedian and knows how to deliver a joke. This is one of Chevy's (recent) works, where you're actually begging to see more of him on screen. Chris Elliott wasn't that funny as the Snowplow Man (though I wouldn't exactly blame him), but I appreciate his effort. Elliott is usually the kind of comic actor who can be funny if given a good script, but obnoxious if given a bad one. Here, he's in the borderline. He doesn't try to ham it up as much as, say, he did in that annoying role in "Scary Movie 2." Some of the kids were much more annoying than him. I actually wanted him to run those little ba**ards down with his plow.
OK, enough with the negative. I'm not giving this film a high recommendation, but I found it amazingly innocuous (once it passed the 30-minute mark) for a Nickelodeon-produced flick. Of course, we could've done without that recurring gag involving the fat kid farting (it seems like anytime there's an obese character in a kiddie flick, he has to be the butt--no pun intended--of all the flatulence jokes), but as a general rule I found it to be a surprisingly smooth ride the rest of the way. I still received only the occasional "Ha" as the film continued to progress, but at least I wasn't grumbling like I was at first. All the story arcs are resolved in a predictable manner, but not in a way in which you're torchered by the obvious cliches.
"Snow Day" is not a film I'd recommend for the 18 and older crowd, but if you're an adult with children who eat up this kind of fluff, it's moderately easy to take. Just let the kids watch the first 30 minutes by themselves, then decide to join them on the couch.
My score: 5 (out of 10)