I know I haven`t been writing a ton this month, but I wanted to pay my respects for the late great Roger Ebert by taking some time off to improve my writing. But since I can`t go a month without writing, I`m going to do sir Ebert one last good deed before I close up on Roger Ebert Month and we can move forward into the half-year anniversary of the blog. And of course, the film I tear into in memory of Ebert is one of his most hated of all time- a beast of a picture simply known as North.
When most people saw the commercial for this (me included on an old video), we basically just saw another kid-friendly comedy attempting to appeal to families. But all that changed after Ebert came back from the film and famously wrote in his column (and I quote from his later book):
"I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."
DANG. That`s got to be the most outright brutal criticism of a film I`ve ever seen. Pardon me while I wipe away a tear of happiness.
Okay, I`m back. But wow, if Ebert had that much hatred for a film (bear in mind, he watched the Super Mario Bros. movie, I Spit On Your Grave and Caligula), how bad can it really be? Really bad, apparently.
But if Ebert hated it, I`m fairly certain I will (I`ve almost never disagreed with his writings, except perhaps on the topic of Daddy Day Care)- get me a suitcase and parka, and let the spirit of Ebert flow through me, because it`s time to look at one of the worst films of all time. Every stupid, vacant, audience-insulting moment of it. Hold on to your underpants- we`re going North.
The film opens with North, played by Elijah Wood, spazzing out after his parents argue about his father`s job at the pants factory (which apparently earns him enough money to buy a large and well-stocked mansion) and passing out. As a guy who`s parents divorced when I was a baby, I can`t really say that I`ve seen this firsthand, but I do know that all parents argue and it`s just another part of childhood to witness it. And I`m fairly certain that in no modern society does a child pass out when his parents argue for 2 minutes.
After North comes to and finds his parents have loosened his pants (no comment), he goes to his secret place (a not very secret living room display smack in the middle of a mall) and notices a man in a bunny suit there (That`s Bruce Willis as the bunny- yes, Bruce Willis, from Die Hard). North explains his problems to Bunny Bruce and decides to divorce his parents. When North tells his friend, a school reporter who only appears in extreme close-ups, North`s parents go into a comatose shock. Due to their inability to testify, North is allowed to wander the world in search of the perfect parents.
His first stop is Texas, where a very stereotypical Texan couple takes him in (This couple is supposed to be a pair of cowboys, but I guarantee if you walked into a saloon wearing one of their costumes an actual cowboy would come up and punch you in the face). The couple really wants to fatten North up and proceeds to sing a song about how they want to raise him to become the spitting image of their dead son Buck, a big fat jock who was killed in a stampede (as the cowboy man says, it was a mighty big loss). North, of course, disapproves of this idea. He shares his feelings with a cowboy he meets on the range (Bruce Willis again) and decides to continue on his odyssey.
Next he travels to Hawaii, where he meets Mr. Ho (who`s first name I hope is Gung), the mayor. North seems to be having a good time, and it looks like the Asian couple are the perfect parents, but they then reveal that they want to use him to sell Hawaii to tourists in the same manner of Coppertone (with the kid`s buttcrack being shown). North (in his only smart move in the film) decides that his behind plastered all over Hawaii isn`t worth these parents, and after discussing the issue with a beach bum (Bruce Willis, yet again), heads off to stop number 3.
Stop number 3, however, is the most racist of them all: North touches down in Alaska where he is adopted by a kindly Eskimo family. They seem nice, but they explain to North the Inuit practice of pushing elderly people out to sea on ice floes after outliving their usefulness. This bugs me because I studied this for a bit, and the Eskimos only did it in serious emergencies, like food shortages or in times of disease. Just pushing them out for whatever is horrible and offensive to the Inuit and Eskimos in general. Anyways, North decides that one bad apple spoils the entire bunch and goes off.
Stop number 4 is an Amish family, who North immediately rejects because of their commitments to hard work and no electricity. While those may be things Amish focus on, I`m pretty sure they don`t always talk like surly fishmongers and have 3 sons all named Ezekiel. He also goes to Africa, China and Paris (where he meets a couple of Jerry Lewis fanatics) before he finds a good family.
And so North reaches his final stop, the Nelsons, a kind and benevolent family who are just happy to have North as a son (and as a bonus, Scarlet Johanson is his new little sister). The Nelsons are the typical Happy Days Family (a new Critical Frog term, my take on Ebert inventing new movie terms), the family that always has fun and any issue it has can be solved with a small talk and charming music. In short, they`re just nice people.But North STILL has problems with this perfect family, and decides to forget the idea of parents and run away to New York.
Meanwhile, his little reporter pal and his new lawyer have become the richest people on Earth from profiting off North`s crusade. In a clearly terrible business plan, the kid attempts to hire AN ASSASSIN to KILL HIS BEST FRIEND and use him as a martyr for child separation from parents. Of course, his plan fails as North defeats the assassin with help from a Fedex Driver (Bruce Willis, for the 4th time- for crying out loud, could they get anybody else?) and is reunited with his parents. Is that the end of the film? God, I wish: North then finds himself waking up in his thinking place. That`s right, just to add insult to injury, a crappy movie just added the crappiest ending of all time: The Dream. Not since Super Mario Bros. 2 has this ending been hated so much.
OVERALL RATING: 0/10
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Rob Reiner made this? Seriously? Rob Reiner, who made The Princess Bride? Wow.
Why ANYBODY would want to make a film like this is beyond me. It`s bad, it`s offensive, it`s bland. and overall it`s stupid. God bless you, Roger Ebert- you managed to sit through this in one sitting. It took me 4 20-minute intervals to be able to put up with this garbage. This is single-handedly one of the worst things I`ve ever seen in my life. You were right again, Roger, this time from beyond the grave.
Well played, Greatest Film Critic Of All Time. Well played.
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