Furry Vengeance (2010)

Memorable, crazy movie

Absolutely the worst movie.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Furry Vengence was described to me before viewing by a friend as the citizen kane of films, Brendan Frasers Magnum Opus. Obviously I was skeptical goin into the film only being familiar with Brendan Frasers outstanding film George of the Jungle but to my surprise the reccomendatiin rang more then true. The bombastic stunts and humour presented by the whole cast carry heavy weight actor Brendan Fraser to new heights in perhaps the finest piece of cinema of the 21st century. Reccomended to anyone and everyone as a must watch

Furry Vengeance is a harrowing journey of a film, an emotional and phenomenological odyssey not to be embarked upon lightly. (What it isn't: a Hitchcockian crime thriller involving people dressing up as anthropomorphized animals for sexual satisfaction. I know - I was disappointed too)A story. Like you, I was never daft enough to assume a so-called family comedy involving a visibly embarrassed, potbellied Brendan Fraser being subjected to various slapstick antics by a group of indignant forest animals would be anything in the area code, let alone neighbourhood, of quality filmmaking. I hunkered down, wincing, and prepared to boorishly wrest a few halfhearted guffaws from how much of a boneheaded mess awaited me.Then: the unbelievable.I laughed. A lot. Like… worrisomely a lot.Oh, not in the way that quote-unquote-director Roger Kumble and his sheepish (ALMOST PUN) filmmaking crew intended. Goodness no. We're talking new depths of 'laughing at, not with', in the most derisive sense. But laugh I did, screeching at the cavernous wasteland of idiocy unfolding before my eyes. How the film recycles the same footage of the logs-hit-boulders wannabe Mousetrap engineered by the unfathomably savvy raccoon adversary/antihero(?) TWICE in the first twenty minutes, as if brazenly flaunting the film's laziness. All subsequent bumped heads/skunk spraying/annoying birds mischief is so deliciously sleepy and stale the film would appear laudably self-parodic were it not despicably phoned in.But, while stupidity reins, boring the film ain't. Oh no. Before we know it, we get Brooke Shields, caught in a subplot mercilessly mocking senior citizens with dementia. Then, the film's 1950s-calibre-of-subtlety product placement ("Honey, I know you're upset we moved away from the big city. But hey - WHO WANTS A NEW WII?"), and the room starts to contort and spin a bit. At one point, Fraser, sprayed in the crotch by a rampant lawn sprinkler, turns to his dumbfounded family, and intones "I made pee-pee". My jaw plunged through the floor, interrupting the family below me having their peaceful, thoroughly sane dinner. Soon, our chirping forest menagerie (all disturbingly voiced by Dee Bradley Baker like Aladdin's Abu run through a blender) start to communicate in comic book style visual speech bubbles, one of which visualizes Brendan Fraser as a teeth-gnashing Satan. Then: strange flashbacks(?) have Fraser embodying break-dancing pilgrims and cavemen alike. Welcome to Crazy Town, population: you. We hit the level of hallucinogenic lunacy where it would hardly seem out of place if Nicolas Cage appeared as a rainbow centaur, guzzling gasoline out of a bowler hat while reciting the pledge of allegiance backwards. And I laughed and laughed, nearly fit to burst, like one of the overcaffienated weasels from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Then, near the halfway point, the film's high wears off, and the existential despair sets in. "Wait a minute," my brain, resenting its loss of brain cells, rebuts. "You think you're all high and mighty making fun of this awful movie. But look at it this way - it's a comedy, and you're laughing. Doesn't that mean it achieved its goal? Doesn't that mean it's... an EXCELLENT movie? Hmm? Hmmmmm? Chew on that!" "Good god - you're right, externally personified brain! What if everything I've ever believed about film criticism and the rest of the world is a lie? What if pigs fly and cats woof and babies have babies and our perception of life is a collective dream as we nuzzle in conveyor belts in giant eggs, tended by an insectoid Rosie O'Donnell with a thousand legs? Ohhhhh no." Then came the stupefied sadness. If Kumble's artistic intent was to bludgeon all sensibilities out of audiences to the point where they are too catatonic to object to the film's trite environmentalist message, he is a secret genius - by the film's mid-point, I was practically weeping for the fate of the trees and squirrels and raccoons and other nature things. Or at least I would have wept, had the film not reduced me to too much of a husk to retain bodily fluids. Stray thoughts flitted across my brain."Man, poor Ken Jeong being in this movie must mean he really needs to renovate his house. I hope he didn't displace any forests for it. I feel like the moral of the story is that wouldn't end well.""If I had a raccoon puppet, how many hands would it take to make it do the Charleston?""Wallace Shawn? Playing a psychiatrist? Inconceivable!""Will I survive to ever watch another film again?"Then, I think I fell asleep for a while/my brain finally mutineered and I slumped on the couch in a vegetative state. I rebooted just in time to catch Fraser's corporate stooge's contrived third act change of heart, spelling out the film's treehugging message in capital letters, as the raccoon puppets all give thumbs up. By the film's almost apologetically reluctant closing credits dance number to a sanitized cover of "Insane in the Membrane" (you can now tick 'Beerbellied Brendan Fraser in a crop top party-boy-ing with squirrel puppets' off your cinematic bucket list) I was howling with disbelieving laughter again. Or maybe it was howling in anguish. Pretty hard to distinguish at this point. In all fairness, the film offers roughly three genuine but meager laughs: one at how ashamed Brendan Fraser looks throughout, one in solidarity with Ken Jeong, and one at Rob Riggle belligerently refusing to be dragged down to the film's level (in his character's own words: "I do as I please!!!"). But otherwise... yeesh. To all unsuspecting children who might be exposed to the mind-altering horrors of this movie: I fear for you, and humanity's future. To all consenting adults willingly subjecting themselves to the hallucinogenic, apocalyptic camp of Furry Vengeance: godspeed. Your lives will never again be the same. -1/10

Picture Doctor Doolittle 2 with Eddie Murphy. Now picture the movie without any funny animal dialogue. Now replace all the funny human characters with painfully boring characters. Now amp up the hackneyed, overused plot to be even more cliché. Now walk out of the theater angry and demanding your money back. You've just seen Furry Vengeance. I thought the Egyptian plagues ended with the death of the first born son, so what it the explanation for this garbage? For those of you who think I'm being cruel, let me recap the plot. Some guy wants to tear down a forest, and the animals play pranks on him. That's it. Nothing else. For over an hour. Ugh. Well, as with all things, there is a bright side. Brendan Fraser CAN'T star in a worse film. Once you've hit rock bottom, (and I'm pretty sure this hits the bedrock), there's no place to go but up. The worst is over. At least, until someone tries to make a sequel.. duh duh duuuunnnnn!

At the end credits, I was still trying to get the plot.Take the concept from 'Over the Hedge' - brilliant! Take Brendan Fraser, big name from several really good action films. Good idea, but this isn't an action film. Add several plot elements and then forget to use them. Ah. Oops.For some reason, my teenage kids loved this. But then they've never seen the slapstick of Laurel and Hardy.If the CGI was closer to 'Over the Hedge', or the animals talked, rather than those ridiculous thought bubbles, this could have been so much better. If the plot about the new family in town, making connections along the way, had been explored, and the really embarrassing sub plot about the old teacher with a poor memory had been scratched, it would have been far better. The strange sub plot about the deranged forest ranger was even more of a waste of space. He just didn't fit in.Oh, and if you're going to use a CEO character who looks Chinese, and seems to come across as that, PLEASE don't give him a western name - either a Hong Kong Chinese or a straight Chinese one. I'm sure young kids will love this, as its all about the series of slapstick scenes that don't need to hang together with a plot.Making a great slapstick though, you need to learn the techniques of the masters (L&H). Never reuse a joke. Its funny the first time, and after that makes it look like you've run out of ideas. And, make the slapstick work with the plot, not the other way around !