Monkeybone (2001)
The story follows an animator whose in a coma. He gets to explore the afterlife meeting several of his creations. Among them was Monkeybone whose a recurring cartoon character in his work. For those that haven't seen the movie, it's quite a strange movie. Monkeybone came up with a plan to steal his animator's body in the real world.
They actually referenced author Stephen King!!! I liked King confirms Cujo as in the famous dog in one of his stories taken over his body. Yeah I can't imagine how ugly things went. This movie also had a difficult production including the original director fired.
According to Rose McGowan, she preferred this unique scrapped concept over what ended up happening. It sounds like the replacement director didn't know what he was doing. It often gets compared to Beetlejuice since it's also a dark comedy movie with the afterlife.
I will say Whoopi Goldberg as the Grim Reaper works way better than you think. I liked she has several extra skulls in the event the one she's using gets destroyed. We actually see the animator Stu take over a corpse to stop Monkeybone. It turns out the guy running this location Stu was at turned out to be the Grim Reaper's brother.
His creations gets to watch Stu's nightmares every night treating it like a great movie. I know saying this movie was strange following Brendan Fraser in another movie. Bedazzled is already quite puzzling indeed!!! In Bedazzled, he made a deal to get a lot of wishes from the devil.
Somehow this ended up being even weirder than that. I kinda liked the main afterlife location of the movie. Sure this also reminded me of Corpse Bride to a degree. Thankfully differs more than Beetlejuice Beetlejuice did to that movie. McGowan plays one of my favorite characters in the movie.
She plays Missy Kitty whose a cat lady that befriends Stu. Possibly among the most normal people Stu meets there. Monkeybone reminded me of Roger Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? movie. Just not quite as rememberable that's a bit annoying. I first seen the movie as a video rental from a local library.
The same library I gotten into Ninja Scroll movie funny enough. Yes the same location I also was introduced to Bedazzled as well. Somehow memories stayed with me a long time. Monkeybone was easily the strangest movie I rented from a library. I felt some scenes works a little better when you're in the right state of mind.
It wouldn't say it's a terrible movie. It's not great by any means. Especially compared to the original Beetlejuice movie. It still had some unique looking designs as well as visuals. Both of which also sticked with me. Monkeybone may not be for everyone. It also reminds me of a particular Stephen King story, The Dark Half.
The Dark Half involved the author who wrote a successful book series. Then he decided to end the character. Somehow that character came back to life but in the real world. Which led to the confrontation prior to George's demise. I'm more familiar with the movie version myself.
Somehow Monkeybone even stranger than that!!! Keep in mind, CGI was in it's early years. The movie blends CGI with a mix of stop motion animation as well as live action thrown in. Personally I felt that somehow came together a little better than expected.
I also liked how most reapers looked in the movie. The movie ends with both Stu and Monkeybone back in the afterlife. Death forced Monkeybone back inside Stu's head. Then Stu wakes up for a happy ending. The actual ending is among the best parts of the movie.
One of the strangest early 2000 scenes that isn't necessary horror. We see this guy used to work with Stu tried out this spray Monkeybone had made. The scene suddenly turned into a 360 of a person's sanity. We find out Monkeybone promised Death's brother to give people nightmares.
Let's be honest, this plot comes off like a weird drug. They wanna get people sprayed to instantly start having nightmares for their own amusement at their expense. We even get to see an older person get sent out to come back to life. The way the movie played it off like someone just won the lottery.
Monkeybone is a movie that's always been at the back of my mind. I'm not even sure how exactly I truly feel about this movie. It wasn't full blown terrible neither it was among the greatest movies I ever seen. I would say right around the middle is this movie.
You wish several things were either done a little better or done very differently. The story could've been much more than what we actually gotten. End of the day, Monkeybone always going to be among Fraser's weirder aspects of his past. Fraser had quite a successful career since the movie.
This movie is like a much less focus Beetlejuice. To be honest, I preferred Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Which also was a dark comedy movie involving the afterlife. Yet I felt that movie worked amazingly well compared to this. Now that's a decade prior to Monkeybone.
Monkeybone is a movie you should see at least once. Otherwise you won't understand how tricky it is to describe the movie. I felt I already named an handful of similar movies better than it. I also felt Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is slightly better as well. I know some would prefer Monkeybone over Dudley Do-Right movie.
Yes another Fraser movie get use to it. This one was based on the classic cartoon show of the same name. Sure the movie isn't perfect but Fraser tried his best. I actually liked Alfred's performance as Snidley Whiplash in the movie. It was somewhat closer to the cartoon show than some live action adaptation movies.
Even Monkeybone was a little better than The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. Which was released the previous year to Monkeybone. I know some reviewers didn't like the first live action Flintstones movie, I loved it!!! I rather rewatch Monkeybone than that Flintstone prequel movie!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment