When it works, Furry Vengeance is like a big, loud live action cartoon. It overflows with CG-enhanced animal slapstick, dumb as dirt sight gags, and a no holds barred (or shame spared) performance by Brendan Fraser. When it doesn't come together -- which is early and often, sadly -- it feels like court-ordered community service for all involved, including the viewer. With its erratic energy and short attention span style, it's the perfect matinee material for your hyperactive ankle-biter. Anyone out of training pants, however, should steer clear.
Our Mummy man-handler plays Dan Sanders, a dithering land developer working for cruel corporate despot Neal Lyman (Ken Jeong). Having moved with his science teacher wife Tammy (Brooke Shields) and his Jonas Brother clone son Tyler (Matt Prokop) to the middle of nowhere, he's now in charge of destroying a huge wooded nature preserve. Of course, the animals are somehow clued in to Dan's plans and will stop at nothing to thwart his efforts. That includes bashing him with boulders, blasting him with skunk spray, swooping him with vultures, and soiling him with bird poo. Naturally, Mr. Lyman thinks our hero is just being ineffectual, so he usurps a local "green" festival in order to wheel and deal a visiting investor. Needless to say, the local wildlife population steps in to save the day -- and themselves.
As believable as Bugs Bunny in a female disguise and about one-eighteenth as clever, Furry Vengeance is a tired 'toon without a single bit of Looney. It's nothing more than the latest in a long line of family films that mistake stupidity for storytelling and noise for excitement. In the hands of nonentity director Roger Kumble and written by the duo who delivered the equally inept Mr. Woodcock, the lack of laughs is obvious. Perhaps if you had rabies, or some other manner of brain-rotting disease, you'd find the endless mugging and pratfalls funny. Otherwise, this is the kind of movie that offers solid stand-up icons like Patrice O'Neal and Jim Norton in supporting roles -- and then never gives them a single line of dialogue.
Granted, since this is Fraser's folly from the beginning, the rest of the cast are willing to let him goof around (and up). Sporting a prominent pot belly and a bloated, bemused face, he tries his best to infuse this mess with a jovial sense of adventure. He winds up instead the hapless human punchline to hundreds of "nature gone nutty" gags. Kumble amasses an impressive collection of zoological zingers. About the only joke not offered here is a porcupine shooting quills into Fraser's behind. On the plus side, the mammalian scatology is kept to a minimum (no animal farts here). On the negative side, the comedy probably could have used a few raccoon air biscuits.
The humans offer very little humor as well. The movie's main running gag is a sad old lady so lost in her own pre-Alzheimer's world that she dithers on pointlessly. Whenever the critters aren't around raising a ruckus, Granny is trotted out to mumble like a moron. It's even worse for Jeong. He must moderate his voice between a no-nonsense business tycoon type and the kind of race-baiting Japanese stereotype only Mickey Rooney from Breakfast at Tiffany's could love. While it's all in the service of something relatively inoffensive, it argues for Furry Vengeance's overall lack of smarts.
Look, any movie that offers a hallucinogenic dream sequence featuring an entire forest of woodland varmints line-dancing to Chic's "Le Freak" is not out to win a cleverness contest. By substituting idiocy for entertainment, Furry Vengeance loses both the battle and the war.
Our Mummy man-handler plays Dan Sanders, a dithering land developer working for cruel corporate despot Neal Lyman (Ken Jeong). Having moved with his science teacher wife Tammy (Brooke Shields) and his Jonas Brother clone son Tyler (Matt Prokop) to the middle of nowhere, he's now in charge of destroying a huge wooded nature preserve. Of course, the animals are somehow clued in to Dan's plans and will stop at nothing to thwart his efforts. That includes bashing him with boulders, blasting him with skunk spray, swooping him with vultures, and soiling him with bird poo. Naturally, Mr. Lyman thinks our hero is just being ineffectual, so he usurps a local "green" festival in order to wheel and deal a visiting investor. Needless to say, the local wildlife population steps in to save the day -- and themselves.
As believable as Bugs Bunny in a female disguise and about one-eighteenth as clever, Furry Vengeance is a tired 'toon without a single bit of Looney. It's nothing more than the latest in a long line of family films that mistake stupidity for storytelling and noise for excitement. In the hands of nonentity director Roger Kumble and written by the duo who delivered the equally inept Mr. Woodcock, the lack of laughs is obvious. Perhaps if you had rabies, or some other manner of brain-rotting disease, you'd find the endless mugging and pratfalls funny. Otherwise, this is the kind of movie that offers solid stand-up icons like Patrice O'Neal and Jim Norton in supporting roles -- and then never gives them a single line of dialogue.
Granted, since this is Fraser's folly from the beginning, the rest of the cast are willing to let him goof around (and up). Sporting a prominent pot belly and a bloated, bemused face, he tries his best to infuse this mess with a jovial sense of adventure. He winds up instead the hapless human punchline to hundreds of "nature gone nutty" gags. Kumble amasses an impressive collection of zoological zingers. About the only joke not offered here is a porcupine shooting quills into Fraser's behind. On the plus side, the mammalian scatology is kept to a minimum (no animal farts here). On the negative side, the comedy probably could have used a few raccoon air biscuits.
The humans offer very little humor as well. The movie's main running gag is a sad old lady so lost in her own pre-Alzheimer's world that she dithers on pointlessly. Whenever the critters aren't around raising a ruckus, Granny is trotted out to mumble like a moron. It's even worse for Jeong. He must moderate his voice between a no-nonsense business tycoon type and the kind of race-baiting Japanese stereotype only Mickey Rooney from Breakfast at Tiffany's could love. While it's all in the service of something relatively inoffensive, it argues for Furry Vengeance's overall lack of smarts.
Look, any movie that offers a hallucinogenic dream sequence featuring an entire forest of woodland varmints line-dancing to Chic's "Le Freak" is not out to win a cleverness contest. By substituting idiocy for entertainment, Furry Vengeance loses both the battle and the war.
