What it's like: If you took the story ("Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by "Lewis Padgett"--Henry Kuttner and Catherine L. Moore), and gave it to latter-day hippies (such as script-repurposer Bruce Joel Rubin) to make as one of the sharper episodes of the revived THE OUTER LIMITS (it's slightly wittier and better-done than the "Sandkings" pilot). Less rancid and dumb than the typical Spielberg-gang outing, slightly less sanitized (for your protection) than the common Disney production (even if Michael Clarke Duncan's role is straight out of LILO AND STITCH), this film will annoy Kuttner/Moore purists.
What's good about it: the actors are pretty deft, for the most part, including the kid sibs. Kathryn Hahn (of CROSSING JORDAN) and Rainn Wilson (of THE OFFICE and SIX FEET UNDER) are just about the go-to couple for the kind of reasonably latter-day hippies they portray here, and Timothy Hutton and Joely Richardson do well by their increasingly-freaked parent roles. Nice early touch on how the first toy appears differently to our kid protags and to their mother. Some visuals not too shabby, if unspectacular.
What's not so good: the product-placement goes from blatant to, at a key point, annoyingly unbelievable; the framing device, particularly at the end. The changed nature and reason for the transport of the toy package.
What it would be paired with at the Kailua Drive-In or Holiday Theaters for double-features corresponding to those of my youth: DEJA VU or other more innocuous skiffy; probably not with 300.
Another reason it's clearly not directed by Joe Dante: No one's watching THE TWONKY at any point.
What's good about it: the actors are pretty deft, for the most part, including the kid sibs. Kathryn Hahn (of CROSSING JORDAN) and Rainn Wilson (of THE OFFICE and SIX FEET UNDER) are just about the go-to couple for the kind of reasonably latter-day hippies they portray here, and Timothy Hutton and Joely Richardson do well by their increasingly-freaked parent roles. Nice early touch on how the first toy appears differently to our kid protags and to their mother. Some visuals not too shabby, if unspectacular.
What's not so good: the product-placement goes from blatant to, at a key point, annoyingly unbelievable; the framing device, particularly at the end. The changed nature and reason for the transport of the toy package.
What it would be paired with at the Kailua Drive-In or Holiday Theaters for double-features corresponding to those of my youth: DEJA VU or other more innocuous skiffy; probably not with 300.
Another reason it's clearly not directed by Joe Dante: No one's watching THE TWONKY at any point.