"Furry Vengeance" Movie Review (2010)

Movie Review

"Furry Vengeance"

Directed by Roger Kumble, Written by Michael Carnes and Josh Gilbert, 92 Minutes, Rated PG

By our guest blogger, Rob Stammitti

"Furry Vengeance" is not a film you will enjoy. I promise. Of course, there's always the chance that there's someone out there reading this right now who will like it, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. The odds are pretty great in my favor.

So, this baffling and stupid mix of "Dr. Dolittle" and, I don't know, "Captain Planet," follows a bumbling real estate developer played by Brendan "Sure Knows How to Pick 'Em" Fraser, who is tasked with working out a means to create a lush, wildlife-filled nature preserve into a suburban paradise. What he doesn't know (and which we get to learn through several ill-conceived flashbacks) is that many men have attempted to settle on the preserve, and all have failed. Why? The wildlife of the area is super-intelligent and they'll stop at nothing to keep their forest safe.

So, as Fraser moves his wife Tammy (Brooke Shields) and son, Tyler (Matt Prokop), out of the city and into this undeveloped town in preparation for reducing the place to timber and dirt, the animals (led by a clever and vindictive raccoon) make his life a living hell.

When it comes down to it, there's almost nothing to this movie. It's like a blank slate they plopped cute, fluffy, badly CGIed animals onto to make it seem as if it actually has something happening. There's the whole preservation of nature thing, I suppose, but they couldn't be less subtle about it, and nobody wants their comedy (if one could call this film a comedy) to wag its finger at them for 90 minutes. I'm not saying a comedy can't have a good message, but generally a well-written comedy (scratch that, just a well-written film in general) will have a bit of sophistication in how it delivers that message. "Show, don't tell" is the mantra of screenwriters everywhere, but apparently the duo who wrote this missed that boat.

Fraser, who continuously seems to be proving my thesis that his acting career is just an elaborate comedy act in and of itself, brings about as much nuance as is possible to a role that demands little more than standing around, screaming at animals, and getting covered in various disgusting bodily fluids. The rest of the cast, consisting of kind of meaningless appearances by various character actors (Ken Jeon, Rob Riggle, Angela Kinsey, Jim Norton, Patric O'Neal, the list goes on and on) do what they can with the material, which isn't much more than what Fraser does with it.  Zip.

Basically, this thing is just a rotten mess. It's not funny despite it's almost pathetically desperate attempts to be funny; its message is blatant and carelessly delivered; and even at 90 minutes, it feels like an eternity of sitting through sequence after sequence of fake squeaky animals and Fraser hamming it up right along with them.

This thing was directed by Roger Kumble, who made "Cruel Intentions." Say what you will about that film, but it had some level of cleverness and style going for it. What does this film have? You can say whatever you want about the general output that comes out of Hollywood, but very rarely can be said that film has absolutely nothing going for it. Even the little kids in the theater sat in bored disbelief at what they were seeing. Well done, "Furry Vengeance"--what your creators have created in you is quite an accomplishment.

Grade: F

Below is the trailer for "Furry Vengeance." What are your thoughts of the film?