Cabin Boy (1994)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I am really shocked by this movie's super low rating of not even five out of ten, I figured it probably would be kind of low since it was not as good as Chris Elliott's TV show Get a Life and a lot of people didn't like his humour or this movie, but it was pretty good. It's obviously not for everyone with a really "out there" sense of humour but for what it was it was really funny, with a lot of laugh out loud gut busting moments. David Letterman's "wanna buy a monkey?" cameo is fantastic and Chris Elliott is great as the full of himself, super annoying rich kid turned cabin boy. I really recommend it if you like any of his other work or Get A Life.

Spoilers ahead.Rarely is a comedy such a masterpiece! Cabin Boy succeeds because it is gonzo and really, really funny. It is a dead-on parody of the Rudyard Kipling morality play "Captains Courageous," as well as a fitting homage to the cheesy stop-motion special effects from master Ray Harryhausen. Chris Elliot, a master of the bizarre, is excellent as the spoiled brat Nathaniel Mayweather, who undergoes a profound transformation into the child-like cabin boy of the "Filthy Whore." The whole cast are devoted to their roles as grungy, cruel fishermen. this is a wonderful dark comedy with no pleasant moralizing, where the fishermen are Kipling's noble souls. This morally ambiguous film turns "Courageous's" pat duality of morals and noble fishermen on its it as a savage parody. The cast, crew, and directors knew this had to be a weird film, and all put in exemplary efforts to make this film as bizarre and as wonderful as possible. The cheesy special effects work perfectly. Elliot should have won an Oscar for his masterful performance. Fans of performance art will also relish the lovely Ann Magnuson's role as Kali, a parody of the monsters from Harryhausen's "Sinbad" movies. Lovers of comedy will adore this movie!

Yes, this is an excellent filmic achievement full of 'life truths' for the morally, mentally and socially compromised. (But please go out and buy the book this movie was not based upon: "The Shroud of the Thwacker" by one Sir Christopher Elliot. You will be amazed and enlightened.) When I recommend a film, I prefer to have actually seen the critter in the local cinema hall. I like to sit well back somewhere in the loges. If there are no loges, I will stand somewhere until told to take a seat. But enough of my personal peccadilloes. I did indeed attend a public screening of this delightful celluloid romp and was tickled by its wit and informed by its wisdom for many a moon thereafter. This 'flick'--if I may be so bold-- will one day be considered a classic in the genre as soon as the genre is identified. As a somewhat knowledgeable cineaste I encourage everyone to rent this stunning opus. It will heal your inner Ebert.

Back in 1994, Chris Elliot was one of the many SNL stars who was known for his cheeky comedy sketches alongside the many stars of the SNL over the years for about 3-4 years afterwards. This tale was trying to be Chris Elliot's "Deuce Bigalow" or "Wayne's World," but Elliot never really had any great reoccurring characters in SNL.The tale is of Elliot's character, Nathanial Mayweather, who completes his education as a sass-mouthed, fancy boy only to find that he is stranded in the real world outside of the upper-class. He seeks a trip to Hawaii after getting kicked out of his ride home (for sass-mouthing the driver). The only transportation around in a fisherman's boar that has 4 drunken sailors onboard who try to treat him horribly so that they can fish in peace. Hijinx ensue, though, after he rescues a world record-hopeful swimmer who doesn't want to be saved, and a bunch of weird "monsters" on the "Hawaii" island. He learns that life with friends is better than someone-else's dreams for him, and returns to the crew of fishermen and the girl.So that's it...you now know what happens. No need to rent it. I got a little bored of the characters and their joking around. There were no real characters to get attached to...that was the main problem. There were occasionally funny lines in the movie (The pipes...are clean! and David Letterman's "Do you wanna buy a monkey, little girl?") and, more importantly, the movie was co-produced by Tim Burton, who does amazing touches with animation and realism of outside characters (the siren on the front of the boat, the clouds in the storm, the quirky fish title sequence, the little characters mixed with the real-sized ones). That and the cameos by well-known talk show comedians David Letterman and Andy Richter have their own appeal to watch this film.Ultimately, I gave the movie a 5, though, because it wasn't an important film for comedy's sake, just different. Another story to throw along with the Austin Powers collection and Deuce Bigalows. Check it out to find your own funny stuff in the film, though. It has its moments.