By
Mark Betancourt
Arizona Daily Wildcat
New Brendan Fraser movie a combination of stop-motion animation and stupidity
GRADE: D
Brendan Fraser has, on occasion, strayed from his chosen path of acting in extremely bad movies, dipping into cinematic legitimacy with "School Ties" and "Gods and Monsters." But bombs must hold a special place in Mr. Fraser's heart, because he's in another one.
"Monkeybone," based on the graphic novel "Dark Town" by Kaja Blackley, is the story of a man and his monkey. Fraser's character, cartoonist Stu Miley (his jacket says "S. Miley" - get it?), is responsible for Monkeybone, a mischievous little cartoon monkey who was born when Stu fell in love with his girlfriend (there's an erection gag in there somewhere, but why go into it?).
Julie (Bridget Fonda) is Stu's reason for living. He used to have bad dreams, but when Julie, a sleep researcher, came along and fell in love with him, he was all better. Now Stu clings to her like a smitten pre-teen, and Monkeybone is making him famous. For whatever reason, Stu is portrayed as completely socially inept, right down to not being able to look adults in the eye when they are talking to him.
Just when young Stu is about to propose to Julie, he crashes his car and falls into a coma. Stu plummets to "Down Town," the cartoon equivalent of purgatory. This is where people wait to see if they come out of their comas, and for some reason, Down Town is filled with nightmares.
So who's the art director? Stu is surrounded by what amounts to a bunch of extras milling around in Halloween costumes. It looks like "Little Monsters," with Fred Savage, if anyone remembers that one.
From here, the plot goes on without the audience. Stu's sister comes out of nowhere and says she wants to unplug his respirator, Bridget Fonda starts crying and doesn't stop until the end credits, and Stu gets thrown in jail with Stephen King for trying to cheat death.
Somehow, Monkeybone, a havoc-wreaking figment of Down Town, gets involved in this plot to spread bad dreams around up in the real world. Monkeybone then manages to inhabit Stu's real body and go around attacking dogs and watching monkeys mate on the nature channel. Then, as a favor from Death (Whoopi Goldberg), Stu comes back in the body of an organ donor (Chris Kattan) to set Monkeybone straight.
The Writer's Guild of America must really be loosening its regulations. Isn't the whole "death, then same soul, different body" thing going on in "Down to Earth," too? Oh, well.
Sure, "Monkeybone" isn't your average bad movie. It has some interesting - not good - special effects. OK, 10 years ago, they might have been cool. Back then, people still thought a point-of-view ride down a winding roller coaster that isn't really there was pretty astounding. Unfortunately, we're over that.
"Monkeybone" does offer an FX first, though - stop-motion animation in a live-action format. Animators think it's cool, but others might think it looks cheap. Director Henry Selick, whose work includes "The Nightmare Before Christmas," seems to have slipped a little with "Monkeybone."
Maybe people just don't appreciate graphic novels on film. Maybe Selick and Fraser would answer criticisms that their film is juvenile and stupid with, "It's supposed to be that way." Then again, maybe it's just a bad movie.
