Monkeybone (2001)

User Rating:

4.5/10   

Director:

Henry Selick

Writers (WGA):

Kaja Blackley (graphic novel "Dark Town")
Sam Hamm (written by)

Release Date:

23 February 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Comedy | Fantasy | Romance

Tagline:

If It Yells, If It Swings, It's Got To Be Monkeybone!

Plot:

In a coma, a cartoonist finds himself trapped within his own underground creation and must find a way to get back, while racing against his popular but treacherous character, Monkeybone.

Plot Keywords:

Death | Nightmare | Coma | Monkey | Critically Bashed

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Brendan Fraser	...	Stu Miley
Bridget Fonda	...	Dr. Julie McElroy
John Turturro	...	Monkeybone (voice)
Chris Kattan	...	Organ Donor Stu
Giancarlo Esposito	...	Hypnos
Rose McGowan	...	Miss Kitty
Dave Foley	...	Herb (as David Foley)
Megan Mullally	...	Kimmy Miley
Bob Odenkirk	...	Head Surgeon
Pat Kilbane	...	Burger God Representative
Lisa Zane	...	Medusa
Whoopi Goldberg	...	Death
Sandra Thigpen	...	Alice
Wayne Wilderson	...	Hutch
Amy Higgins	...	Clarissa (as Amy D. Higgins)

Also Known As:

Untitled Monkeybone Project (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for crude humor and some nudity.

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:LH | Malaysia:U | Finland:K-11 | Netherlands:6 | South Korea:12 | Argentina:Atp | Australia:M | Chile:TE | Germany:12 | Hungary:16 | Ireland:15 | Peru:PT | Singapore:PG | Spain:13 | UK:12 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The song "Hell" by the Squirrel Nut Zippers is heard in both Blast from the Past (1999) and "Monkeybone", both starring Brendan Fraser. Likewise, comic actor 'Dave Foley' appears in both films.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Chris Kattan's character flips from the first bar to the second in order to get into the party, you can see grip powder on the second bar from previous takes.

Quotes:

Stu Miley: The woman I love is living with a horny little monkey that looks like me.
Kitty: What a lucky girl!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Coraline (2009)

Soundtrack:

Hell

Deserved to do better

Henry Selick's first feature, "The Nightmare Before Christmas", was a modern classic. His next, "James and the Giant Peach", had most of the things that made "Nightmare" great - heavily diluted. One thing that weakened Selick's second movie was his decision to begin and end with live action footage, when the glory of both "Nightmare" and "Peach" lay in skilful, sharp, gorgeous stop-motion animation.

In "Monkeybone" Selick has watered the original batch of Nightmare juice still more (note to Selick: it's time to stop mining this lode - if you make a fourth feature, get a new look), with at least half of the footage lacking the visual trademarks that were probably the reason for making the film in the first place. There WAS some stop-motion footage thrown in, probably it's for old time's sake.

Still, this is a better, more memorable movie than Selick's last one, and certainly not nearly as bad as the miserable box-office returns and scathing reviews would lead you to believe. Yes, the film has its flaws, but if you were to judge from its reception you'd think it didn't have ANY virtues - which simply isn't true. There's Brendan Fraser, for a start. How can you not like Stu Miley, or the way Fraser plays him? (If you want to see Fraser's charm wasted, see "Bedazzled".) At one point Stu is forced to temporarily occupy another body (Chris Kattan), and we instantly transfer our affections to the new actor without giving the matter a second thought - which is more remarkable than it sounds, and shows that Fraser really had been WORKING to get us to like Stu.

Then there's Downtown, which you must admit, looks good. It's more of a visual hodgepodge than Selick's previous two worlds (the first of which owes its look largely to Tim Burton), partly because it was realised through an ill-chosen mixture of costume, CGI, stop-motion and set design ... our eyes must constantly adjust, yet the overall look is strong enough to make it worth the effort.

As for the film's flaws, well, they've been greatly exaggerated. I suppose there were (as several American critics complained) some bodily-function-based jokes, but I can't recall that many - certainly not as many or as witless as in "Shrek", and besides, at least some of the jokes in "Monkeybone" are actually funny. That's because they're character-based, and not solely reliant on the alleged shock value of someone suddenly farting or burping.

All that's really wrong with "Monkeybone" is that it lacks the brilliance a premise this bizarre demands. Yeah, well, big deal. So unlike Selick's first feature it's not a masterpiece. It's still an entertaining, competently made film with a good, solid story, more than inventive enough to justify having been made.