Furry Vengeance (2010) Reviews

• Does what it does well enough

  reccewoody2011-01-07

  If you have seen the trailer and gone ahead and bought or rented the movie, then you know what to expect. This isn't Bergman's The Seventh Seal, or Welles Citizen Kane. It is what it is, a funny family movie with lots of forest critters causing trouble for Brendon Fraser. Of course Brendon has done better more artful movies, of course he's done more adult-themed action, but why all the hate for this movie? Sometimes I want a sophisticated cerebral comedy with witty satire and subtlety, just like sometimes I want a fancy meal. But there also times I just want to kick my shoes off, sink a beer, scoff a pizza, burp and watch a fun film. This is what you get with Furry Vengeance, and it delivers what it sets out to deliver. The performances are exaggerated sure, and yes, you can tell no-one has spent months refining the CGI. But what the hell, the movies makes you smile throughout, with a few laugh out loud moments thrown in too, and the extras on the DVD prove that everyone had a good time making the film. Chill out all you negative reviewers, appreciate this movie for what it is.

• A movie that needs defending

  Thischarminglad2010-08-20

  I don't usually bother with reviews but when I logged into IMDb and searched for Furry Vengeance I was astonished to find the movie was actually lounging in the bottom 100 of all time I was simply stirred into action to defend this movie. I have put two and two together and decided that the low rating this movie has accrued has probably everything to do with a bunch 20 something nerdy tech heads who have yet to enjoy the pleasure of having children, I watched this film with 3 young children of various ages and they had a ball as I did, there was several laugh out loud moments and not just for young children but adults too, but if you're a twenty something adult you might find it so uncool inverted commas! so seriously you view life. When you have children of your own movies like this will become so much more enjoyable believe me!. I'd give this movie a 7 rating from an adult with children perspective but I rated it a nine because the children in my presence absolutely adored it and would probably have gave it ten if they could rate it themselves. Some people should really learn to enjoy life sometime?

• a made-for-TV movie if ever there was one

  speculatrix2010-05-16

  I won't give away any plot, but to be honest if you've seen the trails you've probably seen the only good bits of the movie and the rest is watchable if nothing's better on. I initially gave this movie 4/10, but as I wrote this downgraded to 3. I'd say this movie would be ideal for anyone between the ages of 5 and 9. I'd not buy it on DVD except from the bargain bucket, or watch for free on regular TV. I regret having spent good money to see it at the cinema. We saw this at the cinema as a family; we are middle-aged parents with a son, 6, and a daughter, 4. We adults thought it was slow to get started but managed to pick up a little bit of pace. It was quite predictable with the same jokes repeated, and there were no plot twists at all to give it any interest. The bored teenager role was acted with little imagination, the girlfriend just about imagining a soupçon of character. Brendan Fraser managed to make a reasonable deal of a weak plot, and his wife Brooke Shields had a few moments of believable acting as a wife. The script writer lacked imagination, the budget was probably quite low too, there were times the poor CGI punctured the suspension of disbelief (I imagine this would not be one to enjoy on blu-ray unless they fix things up in the transfer). One novelty was that the animals didn't speak, instead thought bubbles appeared with pictures. If I was being cynical I'd say this was as much a way to avoid the costs of voice character actors and dubbing into foreign languages as to give the movie a twist. This could easily have been an episode of a any standard sitcom about a family relocating to the country, and could have been edited down to 45 minutes... and then perhaps the reuse of jokes might not be so bad, but they quickly became stale. So, the movie failed from an adult perspective. Did it succeed to keep the kids entertained? Our 6 year old enjoyed it, he's at that age where adults being stupid, animals being smart, and lots of mess and stink are funny. He's able to follow quite complex dialogue so was able to grasp the point of the movie. Our 4 year old found it hard going, as it was slow to start, there was too much dialogue with too little action, she enjoyed the slapstick humour, but was frequently restless - she'll re-watch Finding Nemo with more attention and she's seen that 10+ times!.

• You know, it's not THAT bad..

  lundman2010-08-12

  All other reviews have been giving 1 out of 10, and proclaiming it as the worst movie ever. The movie is not as bad as that, and the kids enjoyed it and got a few laughs. As an adult it seemed aimed at the 6-8 crowd and worked as that. There have been children movies out recently that the kids did not manage to sit all the way through, for example, Chipmonks squeekle, Princess and the Frog, Planet 51, Aliens in the Attic and so on. Perhaps it had an advertising campaign that gave a different idea of what it is, which disappointed most viewers. The plot is simple enough and follows the classic 'protect nature' without being rammed down the viewers throats too much. Brendan Fraser appears to have put on quite a bit of weight for the role.

• Dismally unfunny

  mcornett2010-04-25

  Brendan Fraser has uprooted wife Brooke Shields and their teenage son to some unspecified rural area, where he's overseeing the construction of a McMansion community in a formerly pristine natural area. This angers the local wildlife, headed by a cackling raccoon, who set off to humiliate, injure, and presumably kill Fraser and other human interlopers. Now, I'm all for the stupidly funny. I wasn't expecting Oscar material and certainly didn't expect it from this. But even on its own low terms, this movie just fails to be funny, and in my eyes, there's little worse than a bad comedy. Bad efforts at other genres can be great for laughs, but when comedies fail to elicit laughs, they're just painful and dull. Fraser's goofy amiability has levitated other films before, but this time he's just not up to it. There's too much bottom-of-the-barrel slapstick, an overpopulation of stupid characters, and predictable family drama. Also, frequently weirdly inconsistent. At one point Fraser is flung into a bee's nest and is covered with stings, but the next morning he's shown without a scratch or swelling on him. Early on, another character suffers an animal-induced auto accident that's rather appalling since it would be clearly fatal and later we're told the character "disappeared." There quite a bit of wet-crotch and groin-injury humor; I remember a time when that was considered too risqué for children, and now is standard for kid flicks. At any rate, they're cheap laughs. Fraser looks bad; he's gained weight and looks pudgy and uncomfortable. Brooke Shields can be a great comic actress but spends most of the time playing the straight man, so her talents are underused. She also doesn't look her best, either. They're basically playing second fiddle to the cutesy animals, which range from real animals to poorly-done CGI stand-ins. Also has nocturnal animals, like owls and raccoons, running around in the day, and daytime animals, like crows, active at night. Not to mention seagulls suddenly showing up in a clearly inland and mountainous locale. At one point the flick attempts to set up some sort of mystical/magical reasoning for the intelligent animals (who not only understand human speech, but seem every bit as aware of human pop culture as the humans are), but then it's quickly dropped and forgotten. I saw this at a preview screening; there were a number of families there and I could tell the very young found it funny, but older kids and adults were clearly not amused and unimpressed. I guess they wanted a sort of live-action cartoon here, but amidst all the mayhem they forgot to make it truly funny...and contrasting it to a halfway realistic family drama doesn't help. You're better off staying at home with some classic Warner Brothers cartoons. FURRY VENGEANCE is to be avoided at all costs, one of the worst things I've seen in a long time.