Seen: July 26th, 2007
Format: DVD
Rating: 3
Steve Oedekerk is a funny guy. I used to get him confused with Bob Odenkirk, who is another funny guy, but Steve's the guy behind all the "Thumb" movies, which are pretty darn funny. He also wrote films like Bruce Almighty, Patch Adams and Jimmy Neutron:Boy Genius. I liked those films well enough.
Not this time.
Let's get this one out of the way. I bugged me (and I'm far from alone) that the male cows (bulls or steers, actually) in this film had udders. It was so wrong, and distracting, that it colored the rest of the film for me. The reason? Evidently, Steve thought it was funny.
And that's probably the biggest problem with this film, as well as some of Oedekerk's other screenplays. They're about gags.
Steve's very clever. His gags are great. He has a wry sense of humor and mixes topical references, pop culture, slap stick and reversal of fortune into some really funny bits. But ultimately, that's really all they are; bits. It's when he tries to tie it all into a cohesive whole that things begin to fall apart.
The actual story here is a re-tread at best. It's been done and re-done and done some more. It's a solid foundation, but really needs to have something original done with it, if it's to stand any chance of succeeding. Anthropomorphic farm animals, owned by a vegan farmer, just doesn't cut it.
To be fair, this is a kids' film, probably for ones with ADD, so that the rather random assemblage won't concern them too much. There are some funny bits here, a few even very funny. Kids may not care that it kind of wanders from one gag to the next, they may be just find with ninety minutes of gags.
Heck, I like the Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges.
The Good: Wild Mike
The Bad: Non-existent plot
The Ugly: Udders on bulls
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