The titular It of this film isn’t the legendary cosmic monster who dresses like a clown. No, this one might be even weirder than that. This It, voiced by Michael Caine, is a sand-dwelling creature that looks like Yoda fucked Chewbacca’s dad and somehow gave birth afterwards. He grants wishes by inflating himself with magical stomach gases, but can only grant one wish a day, except when he can do more because the plot needs him to.
Already, this sounds like the kind of crazy you can only find in media made for children, also known as one of the main reasons why I still give kids’ films an honest chance well into my 20s. Unfortunately, the lunacy isn’t confined to just the story specifics; this entire production is off its face.
The casting, for instance. And I’m not just talking about Sir Michael Caine in what might well be his strangest role ever. The titular Kids are adequate in their roles, even if they largely amount to being an extended ‘damn kids and their smartphones’ tirade. Their parents, though, are another matter entirely. As part of the ‘hilarious’ juxtaposition of American and British norms (read: stereotypes) with the step-family of the titular Kids, we have Matthew Goode and Paula Patton as a couple trying to get their kids to get along with each other. Somehow, this pairing is even more awkward than Patton and Robin Thicke.
There’s also Russell Brand as what can loosely be defined as the villain, a game hunter that is a big ball of foppish colonialism, who is not only aggressively obnoxious, but feels like he got roped in at the last minute for name-brand value. Even without reading either of the source materials, it’s quite clear that his inclusion here is unique to this version of the story. You can tell because the film will just randomly cut to him doing things that have literally nothing to do with the rest of the plot, like little Family Guy-quality diversions from what is already a viscous soup of overwriting.
Actually, I’m still not sure if this is a case of overwriting or under-editing, because this has got some of the worst pacing I’ve ever seen, family film or no. Beyond the sheer looseness of the narrative, which can’t stretch any further than ‘family issues’ and ‘cartoon bad guy wants rare creature’ to fill in the dangerously-close-to-two-hour running time, there are zero transitions from scene to scene. We get a wish for ‘becoming the best gamer ever’ (which, for some reason, means the kid can climb rock walls really fast), an off-screen wish for superpowers, and a stint of time travel that feels like at least five minutes’ worth of footage just went missing in how abrupt it is going to the past and back again.
Did I also mention how desperate this film is for a laugh? For its primary writer Simon Lewis, and its director Andy De Emmony, this is the first step into feature-length family friendly entertainment, and to try and make that work, they both aim for lowest common denominator. In-between the random puking, the TV-grade effects work (the flying scenes look only marginally better than old-school Charmed), a policeman who loves talking about owls, and Russell Brand teaching kids the phrase “ethnically insensitive erotica” for reasons that will forever elude mankind, De Emmony basically treats this family film the same way he treated sex comedy in Love Bite. Namely, that he goes for the cheapest jokes possible and directs them in a way that makes it look like he’s the prehistoric creature, barely on speaking terms with actual human behaviour.
Again, with how cracked-out this all is, part of me is still convinced that I should be in mad ironic love with this film. But alas, I was stuck squarely on the line between boredom and dumbstruck for the entirety of this thing. I can’t say I was expecting all that much coherency out of a film that’s basically an adaptation of an adaptation (one with the original author’s blessing via end-credits cameo, yet more kindling for the bonfire of the insanities), but as much as I love batshit media made for kids like The Peanut Butter Solution and Round The Twist, this was just a pain to sit through.
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