Remember when I posted about The Last Mimzy? Remember how I warned that it was explicitly designed to expose kids to Eastern Mysticism (according to the scriptwriter)?

Well, husband dear does not read this blog. Often, he also does not hear the words that are coming out of my mouth either. So he bought it for the kids (Yeah. We need to own another movie).

I agreed that before we returned the movie, I would preview it to see if it was okay. We get unlimited rentals from Blockbuster online, so it wouldn't cost us anything.

You know what? By the end, even he thought we should return the movie.

The film has a strange tone, almost like a horror movie. Add warbly, unintelligible talking (by the toys) and a little girl who constantly reaches out to touch a three-dimensional static pattern, and Poltergeist comes to mind. And, no offense to Jo, the movie mom, but anyone who has a child who levitates, claims her imaginary friend taught her how to do it... well, I wouldn't be taking her to a neurologist. I've seen The Amityville Horror. I know about evil imaginary friends. Do people learn nothing from Hollywood?

The plot is straightforward. A toy box appears on the beach. It contains rocks, a squid like thing (anyone who has Bionicles might recognize it), a stuffed bunny, and a flat green crystal. The toys are from the future. The kids, Noah and Emma, get smarter. They have to save the world - the future world at least, where the part of their genes that makes them human got broken. A single tear will suffice to save the day.

And then they added the Science Teacher (Rainn Wilson, you'll recognize him from The Office). And the Science Teacher's Girlfriend, Naomi. They live together. They are seen sharing a bedroom. He's shown heading to the bathroom in underwear (not boxers, either), then burying his face in her cleavage, interrupting her goddess and incense meditation.

He has prophetic dreams - of lotto numbers, and mandalas. Later, Noah starts drawing the mandalas as absent minded doodling. This leads to the science teacher showing up at Noah's house, with his girlfriend who reads palms. She sees that Emma is very special, a tulku in the tradition of Buddhism. Supposedly, mandalas are maps to the universe and the future, and little Noah just happens to draw with astonishing precision the most rare ones. Yes, palm reading, dreams and visions (of mundane things, not real prophecies), mandalas... they are all real and legitimate.

The father is absent for the vacation, then later, is clueless in the tradition of these films. The mother is... a bad mom, IMO! She lets them run down to the beach while she unpacks (a 10 and 6 year old in the ocean with boogie boards and no adult present?) Later, when they find the toybox, they are frolicking on the shore while Mom checks out with a book and her iPod. Thank goodness no one drowned. As a parent in a children's movie, she can't help but be dumber than her children. (You might recognize her as Anita in 101 Dalmations.)

The script has holes, the adult characters, especially the Homeland security team, are unbelievable. It's almost like watching a slapstick Disney film where no adult has a clue and none of it would happen in real life.

Yeah. I'll be in the return line of WalMart tonight. And renting Flight of the Navigator, instead, for a more entertaining kid's action adventure.

Labels: movies, Rants and Raves