‘Goosebumps:’ What an incredibly stupid movie, even for kids
IMAGE DISTRIBUTED FOR SCHOLASTIC - Talk show host Meredith Veira, center left, chats with the cast of the upcoming Goosebumps movie, from left to right, Dylan Minnette, Jack Black, author, R.L. Stine, Odeya Rush and Ryan Lee, at a special ?Goosebumps? movie event to benefit the Pajama Program at Scholastic headquarters in New York, Monday, October 12, 2015. All proceeds from the event support the Pajama Program?s One Million Good Nights initiative (Photo by Stuart Ramson/Invision for Scholastic/AP Images)
"Goosebumps" is new on DVD. In this 2015 file photo, Jack Black attends a special screening of "Goosebumps" at the AMC Empire 25 in New York.
Odeya Rush attends a special screening of "Goosebumps" at the AMC Empire 25 on Monday, Oct. 12, 2015, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
If you thought “That looks like Jumanji with books” when you saw the “Goosebumps” trailer, you were half right. The rest of it rips off other, better movies while also being cobbled together so haphazardly as to make very little sense, existing only to showcase some passable CGI creatures. Based on the successful kids’ horror anthology book series of the same name, “Goosebumps” the movie gets nearly everything wrong about filmmaking for kids.
Comically, there are a few good lines, but without a Robin Williams in the mix, “Goosebumps” is painfully unfunny most of the time. And even with relentlessness of one set piece right after another, its poor pacing makes it feel much longer than 103 minutes. Strangely, I was bored amidst the barrage. Tim Burton was originally going to direct the film (no surprise there), which explains another tiresome and bombastic score from Danny Elfman.
But it is chock-full of kids, cops and adults who all make dumb decisions, and unmotivated set pieces filled with poor CGI. Surprisingly, the creepiest monsters turn out to be the old reliable zombies, probably because they were also largely the result of practical effects. But since it’s a PG kid’s film, it can’t be too scary; but it didn’t have to be so stupid.
The actors (specifically Jack Black’s R. L. Stein), keep remarking how the books have a twist and the protagonists grow and learn something, while the movie provides only obvious twists that make no sense, and Zach (a bland Dylan Minnette) changes his mind about walking into school with his vice principle mom (an underused Amy Ryan) because, well, I’m not sure why; he barely spent any time with her during the crisis. He was with Stein, love-interest Hannah (Odeya Rush), and new nerdy best friend, Champ (Ryan Lee) because every story must have these tired archetypes.
But that’s not the end to the tropes in this flick, including a last-minute and disposable damsel-in-distress Taylor (Halston Sage) as a trophy for nerdy Champ, who saves her from a werewolf with his silver fillings (that aren’t actually made of silver these days). She disappears moments after being won, and Champ is also strangely missing from the remainder of the movie. It’s far too busy setting up a sequel to bother including the supporting cast.
The lack of actual silver in silver fillings is only the beginning of the seemingly unending plot holes and script inconsistencies that abound in this movie. Someone is still paying the power bill for an amusement park that was abandoned due to lack of finances. And it somehow isn’t the center of attention even after Hannah lights it up for all to see from miles away; a high school dance hall is filled with teenagers and not a single one realizes they’ve lost cell phone service or received a text from a concerned parent before the cell towers went down.
Our heroes wander through an empty grocery store that isn’t being looted. They forgo using a car to go across town to alert the hapless police they purposefully didn’t bother to alert earlier, and instead opt to cut through a cemetery while there’s monsters on the loose.
Moonlight reveals Hannah as something other than a regular girl but moonlight has no effect on any of the other similar characters from the books. The magic typewriter survives its ordeal hurtling through the woods on a broken Ferris wheel only to be re-deposited in the local high school. Stein as author keeps explaining that’s not how the magic typewriter works only to have it work exactly like that. And why keep such a magical object surrounded by teenagers when literally anyone could write their own reality with it? I could seriously go on for far longer than I have available in this review.
Suffice it to say that the filmmakers must think kids are dumb. The art in the closing credits is the best part of this flick.
- THE FILM: ‘Goosebumps'
- CRITIC RATING: *1/2 stars
- STARRING: Jack Black, Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, Ryan Lee, Amy Ryan, Jillian Bell, Ken Marino, Halston Sage.
- BEHIND THE SCENES: A portion of the movie was filmed in the small town of Madison, GA. This town was voted best small town in America and is a big spot for filming in recent years.
- PLAYING: Syracuse 6, Layton Hills 9, Megaplex 13, Cinemark Farmington, Layton Tinseltown, Newgate Tinseltown, Megaplex 14 Perry 8, North Ogden 6.
- MPAA RATING: PG for scary and intense creature action and images, and for some rude humor. 103 minutes.
