I am a huge fan of the 1990's TV series and I have read some of the books too. I was skeptical heading into this, but I was surprised at how much I ended up liking it. While not groundbreaking by any means, it is still a nice tribute to the work of R.L. Stine.
I actually really enjoyed Jack Black as R.L. Stine. He is definitely not the first actor I would have thought of to play this role, but he gave a nice take on a fictionalized version of the world-famous author.
The story is filled with a lot of fairly standard "coming-of-age" teenage film tropes. The main teenage characters are hardly anything we haven't seen before, but they are pretty likeable, so it could have been worse. Dylan Minnette and Odeya Rush actually had pretty decent chemistry.
I really like the concept of R.L. Stine's stories coming into the real world after being released from their books, and the monsters in this film were pretty darn cool. We get to see Slappy the Dummy, the lawn gnomes, a giant preying mantis, the abominable snowman, the warewolf of Fever Swamp, and many more. The fanservice in this movie is really well done. The only complaint as far as the monsters go is that the CGI used for the warewolf and the abominable snowman was pretty bad.
The film moved at a really fast pace, and I really liked the resolution and how everything was wrapped up. You also got to love the cameo by the real R.L. Stine.
This film is solid entertainment for the whole family. It's not a masterpiece by any stretch, but it's still a fun ride that I recommend to all "Goosebumps" fans.
RATING: B
I actually really enjoyed Jack Black as R.L. Stine. He is definitely not the first actor I would have thought of to play this role, but he gave a nice take on a fictionalized version of the world-famous author.
The story is filled with a lot of fairly standard "coming-of-age" teenage film tropes. The main teenage characters are hardly anything we haven't seen before, but they are pretty likeable, so it could have been worse. Dylan Minnette and Odeya Rush actually had pretty decent chemistry.
I really like the concept of R.L. Stine's stories coming into the real world after being released from their books, and the monsters in this film were pretty darn cool. We get to see Slappy the Dummy, the lawn gnomes, a giant preying mantis, the abominable snowman, the warewolf of Fever Swamp, and many more. The fanservice in this movie is really well done. The only complaint as far as the monsters go is that the CGI used for the warewolf and the abominable snowman was pretty bad.
The film moved at a really fast pace, and I really liked the resolution and how everything was wrapped up. You also got to love the cameo by the real R.L. Stine.
This film is solid entertainment for the whole family. It's not a masterpiece by any stretch, but it's still a fun ride that I recommend to all "Goosebumps" fans.
RATING: B