Overall Rating
  Awesome: 32.2%
Worth A Look: 46.61%
Average: 0%
Pretty Bad: 16.95%
Total Crap: 4.24%
11 reviews, 52 user ratings
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| I Heart Huckabees |
by Brian McKay
"I *shrug* Huckabees"
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Nobody does quirky ensemble comedy like Wes Anderson – which is why it’s too bad that this isn’t a Wes Anderson film. While David O Russell (THREE KINGS, SPANKING THE MONKEY) certainly throws plenty of oddball characters into the mix, and delivers some strong moments of random hilarity, HUCKABEES quickly becomes a bloated and tedious affair that is merely quirky for the sake of being quirky, and soon outstays its welcome.Albert (Jason Schwartzman of Rushmore) is having a rather bad week. As an environmental activist who likes to spread awareness through his really bad poetry, he finds his latest project to save a patch of wetlands being usurped by Huckabees P.R. sleazebag Brad Stand (Jude Law). While claiming that the Huckabees corporation (think Old Navy meets WalMart) will do its part to preserve the local ecology, the truth is that Brad plans to plunk down a big strip mall with a brand new Huckabees store as the crown jewel right in the middle of Albert’s beloved marsh.
Meanwhile, Albert keeps bumping into a tall African man and, convinced that it is not mere coincidence but something of cosmic importance, decides to hire the “Existential Detectives” Vivian and Bernard (Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman) to help him figure out what it all means. They intrusively spy on his daily activities, preach a philosophy of universal connectedness, put him through a kind of sensory deprivation therapy (which consists of him being zipped up inside of a body bag ), and pair him up with another client named Tommy (Mark Wahlberg) as part of a buddy system. Meanwhile, the volatile firefighter Tommy has his own issues, including a penchant toward nihilism and the belief that all things petroleum-based are evil.
Also thrown into the mix is Dawn (Naomi Watts), Brad’s girlfriend and the very scantily-clad Huckabees spokesmodel who goes from being incredibly hot to even more incredibly frumpy when she has an existential awakening of her own. Naturally, this threatens her modeling career when she shows up to work wearing a bonnet and coveralls and looking like “an Amish bag lady.” Meanwhile, the pair of existential detectives find themselves in competition with former protégé and current nemesis Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert), who unlike her former mentors, believes that nothing in the universe is connected and all is randomness and chaos.
Apparently this latter school of thought was the clear victor during the scripting of Huckabees, since it is essentially a smattering of oddball moments barely connected to a plot that’s as flimsy as the cardboard cutouts of Shania Twain that litter every fifth scene. There are some solid laughs to be found in Huckabees, but they are amusing in an isolated and random way, scattered throughout a draining script full of talking head moments in which nobody is saying much of anything really important or interesting. Just as the long bouts of pedantic pop-philosophical meanderings constantly broke up the action movie pacing of a film like Matrix: Reloaded, the frequent existential rants make the comedic aspects of Huckabees uneven and ultimately unsatisfying. The film simply makes far too many pointless detours, only to wrap everything up with a lame new-agey “you’re wrong, but you’re also right” kind of answer.
While everyone seems to be overacting more than a little, everyone manages to earn a few chuckles, with Wahlberg being the clear stand-out as the erratic firefighter who frequently starts fistfights, argues with anyone who will listen, and rides a bicycle everywhere – even to put out fires. Watts is also quite funny when she goes into her frumpy funk during the film’s second half, and in a moment of exasperation delivers up one of the best lines of the movie (you’ll know it when you hear it, and it pretty much sums up how many people are feeling about this movie thus far).With a cast and director this talented, it’s really too bad that I (HEART) HUCKABEES becomes a pointless exercise in padding out thin philosophizing into a two hour film that should have ended right around the 90 minute mark, if not sooner. But unlike, say, THE ROYAL TANENBAUMS, the quirkiness of HUCKABEES feels forced and detached, never really progressing or building upon its themes in any kind of organic way. Feel free to Honk if you love Huckabees, but don’t be surprised if the person sitting next to you flips you the existential bird through their inner moon roof.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10446&reviewer=258
originally posted: 10/12/04 09:08:03
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Toronto Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Toronto Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Mill Valley Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Mill Valley Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Leeds Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Leeds Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
01-Oct-2004 (R)
DVD: 22-Feb-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
16-Dec-2004
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