Choices. Movies are full of choices. Writers make choices all the time on behalf of their audience. Do we want to hear about what Hannibal Lecter had for lunch this afternoon or rather about the time he ate a human liver? Do you want to see Neo enter The Matrix or the laundry room? Should Frodo and Sam walk to Mordor or take the bus?
Bobbleheads: The Movie made several choices. The only winning one was the relatively brief 82-minute run-time. Other than that, I’m not sure why this Toy Story rip-off chose what it chose.
So this is a “normal” house, I think, where the parents just happen to design roller coasters. Now that seems like an awesome idea, and while it’s almost certainly an idea taken from Wonder Park, the main theme of this film is stolen from Toy Story. In the house, there are three bobbleheads, a skateboarder, an anime figure of some sort, and a cat. Just like Toy Story, the bobbleheads come to life when the humans leave and proceed to have their own adventures. And, like Toy Story, how the bobbleheads interact with humans seems far more important than what the bobbleheads do on their own.
The first big choice the film makes is getting rid of the humans – the roller coaster building humans that is- so that the bobbleheads can come out and play. When it is firmly established that the bobbleheads aren’t terribly intriguing or worth our attention, the film makes another choice: introduce worse humans. I wasn’t offended at the redneck porn introduced in Hillbilly Elegy, but I was flat-out embarrassed by the morons who show up to free load at this temporarily abandoned house. Does it matter what the plot is? Not one iota. All you need to know is the possibly likeable humans left, the terrible humans replaced them and a new bobblehead, Deuce (a baseball playing) bobblehead is introduced.
Shouldn’t “Deuce” wear #2? Or is he just named Deuce for his propensity to take upper-deckers? Also, the bobbleheads all have weird love/hate relationships with their real life alter-egos; imagine Woody from Toy Story knowing full well we wasn’t the REAL Woody and hating himself for it.
And then Cher shows up … as an alien Cher bobblehead … to school the “gang” on –and I’m not kidding here – The Bobblehead Creed. I don’t really care what the Bobblehead Creed is so much as why there is a Bobblehead Creed. Is it a normal thing for fad toys to have a creed? Is there a Tamagotchi creed? A Beanie Baby creed? A Pet Rock creed? Before I try to imagine the Fidget Spinner creed, however, I’d like to point out that a Cher cameo is a pretty good indicator that your movie sucks. Cher has definitely been
in and made good films, but selecting Cher for name recognition/star power/kitsch value alone? I don’t care what audience you’re reading; you’ve misread your audience.
This film has precious little exploration of the title subject. Bobbleheads: The Movie is the only film I’ve ever seen about bobbleheads, so, is there anything to know about the subject other than they have a creed? I dunno; maybe discuss their physiology once or twice. The bobbleheads I’ve encountered are extremely fragile; their natural enemies seem to include (but are not limited to) the family pet, gravity, water, wind, air, impure thoughts… I took a bobblehead to college; my roommate’s younger sister destroyed it in fewer than sixty seconds. None of that fragility –or lack thereof- is explored here.
You know what the worst part about this is? I could have gotten into Bobbleheads: The Movie. They were cute and sometimes fun and I found myself subconsciously bobbing along while watching. But the choices this film made were terrible. And if you’re gonna make bad film choices, there has to be compensation of some sort, like great humor or great character development … but Bobbleheads didn’t choose any of those, either.
This toy film should have been a relief
But instead it’s given nothing but grief
Bobbleheads uncool?
There’s no way, you fool!
I just shake my head in disbelief
Rated PG, 82 Minutes
Director: Kirk Wise
Writer: Karl Geurs
Genre: Ripping off Pixar
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Pixar executives
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Pixar executives
