I tried to like this movie, I really did. I've either been spoiled on classic comedies, or I'm too picky with the comedy genre, or this movie was just plain horrible. I tend to believe the latter will be true.
This story follows three brothers, The Appleorchards; Brandon (Chris Kattan), the bad one, and his two brothers David (David Schultz) and Tim (B.J. Bales) who find out that their father (Kip King, Chris Kattan's real life father) is joining his wife in the circus sideshow, and will be giving Camp Bear Claw to the winner of an eight week badge competition. And that's it. We base a ninety minute film on this premise.
First things first: Chris Kattan does NOT belong in feature films. He was only o.k. doing short skits for SNL. He comes nowhere close to any acting ability and spends most of the running time shouting, crying, growling and yelling. I hope SNL takes him back, or maybe he can be a talent behind the camera, because he certainly is not one in front of it.
Even Fred Willard, who has a small part as the Game Master, and giving updates over the loudspeaker to campers looks bored and seems like he's reading his lines off cue cards. The sophomoric comedy that this film is brought only a couple chuckles from me as a bear is running loose throughout the film, and there is a fart joke (I'll never grow too old for fart jokes). The film drags itself along so slowly that you wonder if this might not have had its beginnings as a rejected SNL skit that got drawn out to a feature length film. And whoever did this film's editing must have been a rookie as you'll see some scenes end as the actors are still reading lines. The whole film feels forced and rushed with bad material to work with.
And just to put the icing on the weird cake, David and Tim have a robot that talks and sings and goes out on dates with the female campers. Where the hell did this come from??? It's not funny, adds nothing to the story, and all I can think of was that it padded out the time by ten minutes or so. The special features (if you actually make it to them) are, the official trailer, deleted scenes, and a Brandon montage.
Look, it's as simple as this. If you want to watch a sophomoric comedy that actually has a few laughs in it, run down to the video store and grab "Ernest Goes To Camp."
This story follows three brothers, The Appleorchards; Brandon (Chris Kattan), the bad one, and his two brothers David (David Schultz) and Tim (B.J. Bales) who find out that their father (Kip King, Chris Kattan's real life father) is joining his wife in the circus sideshow, and will be giving Camp Bear Claw to the winner of an eight week badge competition. And that's it. We base a ninety minute film on this premise.
First things first: Chris Kattan does NOT belong in feature films. He was only o.k. doing short skits for SNL. He comes nowhere close to any acting ability and spends most of the running time shouting, crying, growling and yelling. I hope SNL takes him back, or maybe he can be a talent behind the camera, because he certainly is not one in front of it.
Even Fred Willard, who has a small part as the Game Master, and giving updates over the loudspeaker to campers looks bored and seems like he's reading his lines off cue cards. The sophomoric comedy that this film is brought only a couple chuckles from me as a bear is running loose throughout the film, and there is a fart joke (I'll never grow too old for fart jokes). The film drags itself along so slowly that you wonder if this might not have had its beginnings as a rejected SNL skit that got drawn out to a feature length film. And whoever did this film's editing must have been a rookie as you'll see some scenes end as the actors are still reading lines. The whole film feels forced and rushed with bad material to work with.
And just to put the icing on the weird cake, David and Tim have a robot that talks and sings and goes out on dates with the female campers. Where the hell did this come from??? It's not funny, adds nothing to the story, and all I can think of was that it padded out the time by ten minutes or so. The special features (if you actually make it to them) are, the official trailer, deleted scenes, and a Brandon montage.
Look, it's as simple as this. If you want to watch a sophomoric comedy that actually has a few laughs in it, run down to the video store and grab "Ernest Goes To Camp."