Monkeybone
Directed by: Henry Selick
Written by: Kaja Blackley (graphic novel), Sam Hamm
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Bridget Fonda, Rose McGowan, Giancarlo Esposito, Chris Kattan

For months I had avoided seeing “Monkeybone”, the latest Henry Selick film, which suffered many horrible reviews. While at the video store, I came back across it, and figured “Hey, the only reason to see the last couple Tim Burton films was the visuals. By that regard, this movie deserves the same treatment”.

And so I took home the ‘Bone. And I must say, it was worth my time, even if the film was far from perfect.

The plot of Monkeybone is ridiculously complicated and unrealized. Brendan Fraser plays Stuart Miley (S.Miley, get it?), an artist turned cartoonist who has just turned his hit strip “Monkeybone” starring a monkey with slapsticky, racy antics, into a television show for the Comedy Channel. At his premiere, he and his girlfriend, Julie (Bridget Fonda), have their time alone interrupted by people from liscensing and his agent, played by Dave Foley of Kids in the Hall. Julie is a doctor working on strange chemicals, also just now finding success. As Stu is about to propose to Julie, as mishap involving one of the liscenced toys causes a car crash, sending Stu into a coma.

Stu now is sent into a CGI/Stop-Motion animation nightmare world easily comparible to other Selick features such as the Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. This world is called “Downtown” and it is runned by both Hypnos (Giancarlo Esposito – “Bob Roberts”) and Death (Whoopi Goldberg – “Theodore Rex”, heh heh). In Downtown several things happen, equally complicated as everything else I’ve described thus far. Downtown is the land where those in comas wait for either death or to come back to life. As well, it is the land where the creatures that inhabit nightmares live. Hypnos acts as a sort of carnival ringmaster, and Death is the administration. In Downtown, Stu meets his creation Monkeybone (voiced by the usually brilliant John Turturro) who is an MC in a club. Monkeybone generally just jumps around and acts annoying throughout these scenes. He is more a pest than any source of humor. Stu learns he must retrieve an Exit Pass from Death in order to return. Of course, he does, however Monkeybone steals his pass and takes over his body. Did I fail to mention that meanwhile his sister was trying to pull the plug, Julie filled him with her “nightmare juice” to awaken him, thus explaining to her why Stu acts so weird when he comes back to life?

So now Stu is trapped in Downtown, and Monkeybone does all the liscensing and crazy antics that Stu was incapable of, all of which range between mildly and not funny. Frasers charm is wasted in this film, though his monkey movements make me nostalgic for the days of “Encino Man”.

Further complicating things, Stu learns from Hypnos that the plot to get the Exit Pass was a trick concocted by the nightmare creatures so Monkeybone can use the Nightmare Juice to create new nightmares to entertain the people in Downtowns theatres. This is fully unrealized, as unlike the weird trips you see in say, “Brain Candy”, you only see one persons nightmare as a result of the juice in Monkeybone. So now Stu has to retrieve another Exit Pass to get back for the final showdown between he and Monkeybone, retrieve his body and propose to his girlfriend. Of course he gets the pass – again – and the only real laugh out loud part of the movie happens, and who would have thunk it? it came from the usually despicable and incredibly unfunny Chris Kattan of Saturday Night Live.

Death gives over the recently dead organ donating gymnast body of Kattans to Stu, and for the next 10 – 20 minutes or so, you get the delight of watching a corpse with organs falling out and a broken neck run across the city, climbing buildings, dangiing from a hot air balloon, etc.. This scene is so over-the-top crazy that you cant help but enjoy it, even if they probably could have pushed it even further…

From here on in you can pretty much guess what happens.

Now that I’ve gotten over the incredibly complicated storyline, on to everything else. Monkeybone is most interesting in its Downtown world. Its another triumph from the team that put together the worlds of Nightmare Before Xmas, the creatures are both frightening, bizarre and goofy looking, the set design and costumes are fantastic. The real world direction is average looking, with no real flair. Of course, thats what you expect when you have a world like Downtown to compete with.

I’ve been told that the DVD contains many deleted scenes which are funnier than anything in the movie and piece the story together better. Its a mystery to me why they would have left these scenes out if they were so important. I’ve heard they were trying to get a PG-13 rating so they had to cut some things. This is unfortunate, as with some tweaking and better editing, Monkeybone could have been much better, even with all the complications.

Overall, I don’t consider this movie a disappointment due to my low expectations. Its flawed, but at the same time its interesting both visually and conceptually. Worth a rental. — The Pretentious Goon