I don't know how, but somehow Henry Selick got his hands on millions of dollars to make a movie that's going to appeal to only a small handful of odd movie goers. Monkeybone is a visually delightful, darkly humorous, and totally refreshing fantasy flick full of great special effects, likable characters, and a style that mixes everything from "Brazil" and "Cool World" to "Hellraiser" and "Eraserhead". It reminded me of "Dark City", "Freaked", "Forbidden Zone" and the work of Sid and Marty Krofft, but at the same time completely fresh and original.
"Monkeybone" does suffer from some flaws, but they seem like the manipulations of some behind-the-scenes tinkering to make the movie more "normal". The most visible scars occur when our hero Stu Miley (Brendan Fraser, who is quickly becoming a great comedic actor) first arrives in Monkeybone's nightmare land. These early scenes in the fantasy world seem rushed and poorly plotted. I hope there's a special edition DVD or something to see more stuff.
But the stuff that was left in is great. I couldn't believe what I was seeing sometimes- Stu's black and white surgery nightmare was one of the creepiest things I've seen on the big screen, and Bob Odenkirk appears as a organ-hungry doctor in scenes that seem to be taken right out of his HBO series "Mr. Show". Chris Kattan is outstanding, providing some hilarious, "Re-Animator"-style hi-jinx as "Organ Doner Stu", Dave Foley is also funny as Stu's manager, and Whoopie Goldberg is really good as Death, whose head explodes when she gets mad.
But the real stars here are the fantasy characters who inhabit the nightmare town. Like in "The Nightmare Before Christmas", the background characters are just as cool-looking and diverse as the leads. It's a shame that more time isn't spent dwelling in this world or in Death's land, and that most of the movie takes place in the "real" world.
Anyway, see this movie while you can- it'll probably be out of theaters by the time I finish writing thi- too late.
"Monkeybone" does suffer from some flaws, but they seem like the manipulations of some behind-the-scenes tinkering to make the movie more "normal". The most visible scars occur when our hero Stu Miley (Brendan Fraser, who is quickly becoming a great comedic actor) first arrives in Monkeybone's nightmare land. These early scenes in the fantasy world seem rushed and poorly plotted. I hope there's a special edition DVD or something to see more stuff.
But the stuff that was left in is great. I couldn't believe what I was seeing sometimes- Stu's black and white surgery nightmare was one of the creepiest things I've seen on the big screen, and Bob Odenkirk appears as a organ-hungry doctor in scenes that seem to be taken right out of his HBO series "Mr. Show". Chris Kattan is outstanding, providing some hilarious, "Re-Animator"-style hi-jinx as "Organ Doner Stu", Dave Foley is also funny as Stu's manager, and Whoopie Goldberg is really good as Death, whose head explodes when she gets mad.
But the real stars here are the fantasy characters who inhabit the nightmare town. Like in "The Nightmare Before Christmas", the background characters are just as cool-looking and diverse as the leads. It's a shame that more time isn't spent dwelling in this world or in Death's land, and that most of the movie takes place in the "real" world.
Anyway, see this movie while you can- it'll probably be out of theaters by the time I finish writing thi- too late.