(Guess what, everybody? I got the half-year special working finally! I know it's a bit late but better late than never. Or, when watching this film, better never than ever.)
It's the half-year anniversary of The Critical Frog, so I though I'd do something for everyone who's decided to follow me and make sure the blog keeps moving along.
I had a great plan for this. I was going to do an actual recorded video, and there was going to be a big celebration. I was going to buy everyone a drink, and there was going to be a party at a bar, and snacks, and a live musical performance by Voltaire...... but money was tight, Voltaire couldn`t make it and somebody ate all the snacks (burp), so long story short...no party. I needed something to do, and fast.
So because I talk about movies I've never actually reviewed a lot (like V for Vendetta, but that movie is SO GOOD), I thought I'd give everyone something special: one of the few movies I absolutely hate with all of my heart. Something that would make the great Roger Ebert CRY. I am, of course, referring to the abomination that is The Garbage Pail Kids Movie.
By god, do I hate this movie. I hate it more than pretty much anything I've ever seen (and bear in mind I watched The Oogieloves, Troll 2, and North), and by a large margin. I have NEVER seen anything as heinously wrong as this in my entire life, film or otherwise. In gamer terms, this is the E.T Video Game of movies. That bad. It's disgusting, immature, pointless, and stupid. Not even the moral works out in the end. This movie is so terrible that many popular critics assume it t be the worst movie of all time. Ouch. But let me stop complaining and get on with the review. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.
The Garbage Pail Kids are a series of collectible trading cards featuring pictures of horrible deformed kids that somehow became very popular (honestly, I never really saw the big deal) . Apparently some movie director picked up a pack (probably while he was on LSD) and decided that these random, disgusting pictures would be excellent characters for a deep, plot-driven story. And so the idea for this abomination was born.
I can understand where they were coming from: card game movies get followings easily ( the Yu-Gi-Oh movie wasn't terrible, and the Pokemon series of movies continues to this day), but with a series like this, there really wasn't anything to build off of. Other card game movies have a story to build off of (like Pokemon's ongoing adventures of Ash Ketchum), but this has nothing but a bunch of ugly pictures. So rather than having something to follow, they went in a random direction, and the result? THIS.
The movie starts with a shot of space, where we see a garbage can flying through the cosmos. Presumably this is supposed to be the Garbage Pail Kids flying to Earth or something like that, but it's never explained. It makes no sense, but then again, neither does the rest of the movie.
The actual story begins when we see a boy named Dodger getting pushed around by a bully (who seems a lot older than Dodger) named Juice (really). They steal two dollars from him, because clearly they can`t get jobs and make money. Dodger goes to the store where he works (see? Even the KID has a job, bullies), Mr. Manzini`s Antique Shop, where he sees the owner (Mr. Manzini of the same name) and a large garbage can. The old man goes to clean up Dodger`s clothes (that`s not strange in any way whatsoever) and tells him not to go near the garbage can, lest hell be unleashed upon the world. But after seeing what`s in there, I`d actually go for the Hell on Earth.
One of bully Juice`s friends, Tangerine (seriously? Tangerine and Juice? These sound less like names and more like a grocery list), enters the store and comforts Dodger, who takes this opportunity to... sniff Tangerine`s hair. Okay then.
Juice and his gang of bullies enter the store to harass Dodger, who manages to avoid them with trickery (because as the world knows, bullies are dumb), but the mysterious can tips over in the struggle. Nothing appears to come out, so Juice and his gang do the most sensible thing at the moment- handcuff Dodger to a rail and open a sewage pipe on him (As a victim of constant bullying, even I have to admit that scene is WAY too unrealistic. Bullies are mean, sure, but they won`t freaking immobilize and dump crap on you). Dodger is saved by strange little people, who turn out to be the little demon spawns themselves, The Garbage Pail Kids.
Dodger and the disgusting children run back into Mr. Manzini at the antique shop, who seems pretty angry that the devil children have been released (perhaps he knew what was coming), but seems to have no problem with introducing Dodger to every single one of them. The kids are as follows, in a list organizing them by their stupidity and disgustingness. So basically, no order whatsoever.
-Greaser Greg, who looks like if Arthur Fonzarelli mated with Jabba The Hut (played by the same actor who does Winnie The Pooh, for some reason),
-Valerie Vomit, an ugly girl who can throw up on command,
-Messy Tessie, who`s name says all you need to know,
-Ali Gator, a human-gator hybrid with cannibalistic tendencies who is also the group`s leader,
-Foul Phil, a baby with halitosis who asks people if they are his parents,
-Nat Nerd, your stereotypical nerd who pisses his pants a lot,
And Windy Winston, who wears a hawaiian flower shirt and farts. That`s our all-star cast, played all by midgets in costumes. One can see why I hate these characters already.
The costumes themselves are disgusting: they are so poorly made and badly animated that they make me physically sick to my stomach. By the time I saw the hideous appearance of Nat Nerd, I wanted to vomit up my movie snacks (do you know how hard it is to get me to throw up ? I had to eat an entire carton of E. Coli infected blueberries before I started to feel sick, and even then I took it like a man-true story).
Mr. Manzini admits that he can`t get the demon spawn back into the garbage can and warns them that they cannot go outside, lest the be attacked by the "normies", a slang term that never caught on for "normal people". Naturally, the Garbage Pail Kids are going to break that rule.
After our first meeting with the living chunks of garbage, Dodger and Tangerine go to a night club where Tangerine literally sells the shirt off her back, along with other clothes she sells. Juice then shows up, forcing Dodger to run away lest he gets beat up again by the guys who make my childhood bullies look like pacifists.
Meanwhile, we see our adorable little scamps (I can think of 3 things wrong with that description), the Garbage Pail Kids, stealing a Pepsi truck and running over Juice`s car, while making a joke about being the Pepsi Generation (there you have it. Only ridiculous demon spawn drink Pepsi. Go Coke!). They later have a campout in the street with food they stole while getting drunk and making vulgar jokes. The next morning, they arrive at the antique store and give Dodger a jacket that they made, because apparently these disgusting monsters have a talent other than being disgusting monsters (they aren`t very good at making clothes, the jacket looks stupid).
So Tangerine notices Dodger`s jacket and compliments him on it, saying if he can get more clothes like that, she will sell them for him. We then get a montage of the Garbage Pail Kids acting like jerks in society- ruining a perfectly good Three Stooges skit festival (even the 3 Stooges Movie was better than this), getting into barfights (which makes me doubt their age as I wonder how they got into a bar). The little demon spawn decide to make clothes for Dodger as they steal a sewing machine and other supplie, all while singing a song about teamwork. If this was a parody movie, I would appreciate the somewhat ironic song, but clearly this is no parody. The song was nominated for `worst original number` at the Golden Raspberry Awards (like the Oscars but for bad movies), if you needed more explanation as to why it sucks.
Tangerine meets the Garbage Pail Kids and thinks they look gross (thank god somebody else hates them), but realizes she can make money from their work: come the night when the clothes are to be in a fashion show, Tangerine locks the devil`s children in the antique store to keep them from interfering (which actually makes sense). But the evil bully Juice (apparently he`s still in this movie) imprisons the kids in the State Home for the Ugly, where people with slight deformities are left to rot, including Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and Santa Claus, FREAKING SANTA CLAUS, Because they are "too tall", "too bald", and "too fat", respectively. Really, movie? So people like Juice get to run free, but great world leaders like Gandhi are imprisoned due to a slight defect, that Gandhi had BY CHOICE (seriously, look him up before he was Gandhi. You won't be able to unsee it.). No wonder this world is so screwed up.
Dodger and Mr. Mazzini break the kids out of Ugly Jail (but for some reason leave the important people in there) and head to the fashion show to stop Tangerine's evil exploitation scheme. The group arrives, and the Garbage Pail Kids (for some reason) rip the clothes directly off the models , exposing their scantily clad bodies (not even the models look good!), while Dodger gets into a fight with Juice. Dodger wins the fight and the fashion show comes crashing down.
After the show, Tangerine apologizes for her greed and asks to be Dodger's friend. Dodger refuses because she used his friends and was greedy, leaving her alone. When Dodger arrives back at the antique store, Mr. Mancini tries to lure the Garbage Pail Kids back into the can they came from by singing their awful teamwork song In reverse, but the little demon spawn escape on ATVs (that they probably stole) and disappear into the night, promising more adventures to come.
My god, it was brutal to have to watch this again to give a proper review. Words cannot describe how much I hate this movie, and now that I'm looking at it as a full-fledged critic, I hate it more than ever. Let me put it this way: ever played No More Heroes 2? (If not, then go play it right now. I'll wait.) This movie is the Jasper Batt Jr. of movies: It's boring, forgettable, annoying, immature, and downright stupid.
But what bothers me the most about this movie is that the moral flops more than anything else: in a movie like this, the moral is definitely not to judge anybody by how they look, and more on what they are inside. But these kids are jerks on the inside, too: they steal, cheat, annoy, bite toes off people, and all sorts of bad things. Were we supposed to be rooting for these kids? If so,I was probably watching it wrong. I was rooting for Mr. Manzini- I was hoping he found a way to squeeze those little jerks back into that can.
OVERALL RATING: 0/10
I'm not saying anything else about this dung heap of a movie. Keep this in the garbage where it belongs.
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