Hey, hey, hey, it's Fat Albert! I dreaded this one, in part because of Bill Cosby's fall from grace (he co-wrote it, has a scene in it as himself, and of course, originated the original cartoon), but also because I failed to see how this could be any good or even relevant. The fantasy premise is that a depressed teenager played by Kyla Pratt lets one of her tears drop on her remote control while watching Fat Albert, and it releases most of the cast into the live action world. Poor Kyla Pratt, who also inherited the Dr. Doolittle franchise in this era, and starred in a number of Veterinary School Student Doolittle releases that were just as dumb... From the start, you're wondering who this is for. The humor and plot are strictly Saturday afternoon kid fare, but the nostalgia required to want to see it belonged (in 2004) to 30 or 40 somethings. At its best, it seems to have worked out how cartoons would fare in our world. But it betrays its premise by making that real world just as cartoony. This is one of those movies that doesn't seem to know how the real world actually works, so no contrast is truly possible. It tries its hand at having some heart - I commend its light-hearted take and innocent protagonist - but it's definitely not funny, nor do any characters react in a believable way.
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Siskoid
Hey, hey, hey, it's Fat Albert! I dreaded this one, in part because of Bill Cosby's fall from grace (he co-wrote it, has a scene in it as himself, and of course, originated the original cartoon), but also because I failed to see how this could be any good or even relevant. The fantasy premise is that a depressed teenager played by Kyla Pratt lets one of her tears drop on her remote control while watching Fat Albert, and it releases most of the cast into the live action world. Poor Kyla Pratt, who also inherited the Dr. Doolittle franchise in this era, and starred in a number of Veterinary School Student Doolittle releases that were just as dumb... From the start, you're wondering who this is for. The humor and plot are strictly Saturday afternoon kid fare, but the nostalgia required to want to see it belonged (in 2004) to 30 or 40 somethings. At its best, it seems to have worked out how cartoons would fare in our world. But it betrays its premise by making that real world just as cartoony. This is one of those movies that doesn't seem to know how the real world actually works, so no contrast is truly possible. It tries its hand at having some heart - I commend its light-hearted take and innocent protagonist - but it's definitely not funny, nor do any characters react in a believable way.