"Monkeybone" is the type of experimental, twisted movie that is destined to become a cult classic. Mixing shades of Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice" with an enormous variety of influences such as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," "All of Me," "Alice in Wonderland," and even "Regarding Henry," this movie is a stop-motion cartoon, a live-action love story, a dark comedy, a fantasy, a Freudian nightmare, and more. It contains an extremely diverse and unusual cast, including Brendan Fraser as a cartoonist in a coma, Bridget Fonda as his fiancee, Whoopi Goldberg as Death (yes, you read that right), Chris Kattan as the decomposing corpse of a gymnast, Megan Mullally as the cartoonist's sister who is very eager to pull the plug, Dave Foley as the cartoonist's manager, and Rose McGowan as a kitty cat (yes, once again, you read that right)! It also contains bizzare, strange, and cool animation by director Henry Selick, who also directed Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas." Ostensibly, "Monkeybone" is the story about an artist's struggle between artistic integrity and cartoonish commercialism, about the difference between a work of art and a mere doodle, a satire about the consequences of "selling out." It is also a Freudian fairy tale about a man whose sexual id is represented by a cartoon monkey. Monkeybone is literally this man's erection. The story is an examination of what happens when one lets one's id take over his whole life. It is a psychological analysis of what nightmares are made of. It is a surrealistic comedy containing some of the most startling, visually stunning images you are likely to see on film for a long time, including strange representations of many classical, mythological creatures. It is a love story. While this might sound like the premise of an independant film, this is actually a big budget film that was marketed to look like a children's movie. Not a good idea.
It's no wonder this movie did so poorly at the box office. Believe it or not, this film is the type that should have been playing at small art houses, not mainstream movie theatres. Even the cover box says it's the crudest movie since "South Park." In short, the studio didn't know how to market its own movie.
This movie is an extremely likable one, hilariously funny at times, always seriously bizarre, and obviously the work of a demented genius. It is hard to deny the brilliant artistry involved, and the all-around great acting by the cast. In fact, I respect every actor in this film immensely, especially the big budget ones such as Whoopi Goldberg and Brendan Fraser. This is the type of weird movie they didn't have to do, but chose to do. It is a project they wanted to be involved in, and I respect them for that.
Typically, most of the reviewers, mostly in the middle of the country, panned this film. However, many major newspapers and publications, such as "The New York Times," and "Entertainment Weekly" gave it great reviews, despite its messy nature.
And this is one of the few movies in recent history in which its mess actually adds to its likability. A more polished version of this film would be not be half as enjoyable, brilliant, crazy, or maddening as this truly original, insane piece of filmmaking. As it is now, the viewer constantly wonders what strange happening will occur next, and, trust me, it is always stranger than you thought it would be.
I would not recommend this film to everyone. I would probably recommend it mostly to serious movie buffs or lovers of very original, non-mainstream film, who enjoy Tim Burton/Sam Raimiesque humor in their cinema. If you're in the most for something completely and utterly different in every way, buy this movie.
I talked to two people at work about this movie after I saw it. All three of us have different tastes and all three got something different out of it. I am the animation fanatic, and was interested in seeing another film by the director of Nightmare before Christmas. I enjoy Henry Selick's style and vision, and saw it come through quite well at moments in the film. It's funny that the things I did not like so much about the movie were what my co-workers (and some reviewers here) liked best. Bill is an SNL and comedy lover, and watched purely for that aspect. He thought the movie was hilarious but a little too weird. And my film snobby assistant was impressed with the insider jokes and references, half of which I didn't even catch.
This is why I give the film four stars. It is very good. We all liked it. But none of us loved it 100%. Of course, if we had had, one of us would give it five stars and the others would pan it completely. I guess that's the problem with trying to please everyone all the time. At least Monkeybone comes close, and I recommend it equally to animation, cult film, and comedy lovers.It is amazing to me that every time Brendan Fraser does an edgy, risky movie, like this one, his audience bottoms out. Yet when he does work that I find barely watchable, like the two "Mummy" movies, he is a huge hit. This film drew few viewers, just like his "Still Breathing," "Gods and Monsters," and "Twilight of the Golds." Here Fraser plays cartoonist Stu who via a coma is transported to Down Town. Other people in comas and people who are created by others' imaginations live in Down Town. They all crave nightmares and dreams. It is a hyper surreal place. Stu's creation, Monkeybone, lives there too and Monkeybone plots to take Stu's place in the real world. Monkeybone does emerge in the real world in Stu's body and Fraser does a superb job playing a monkey in the body of a man. In fact, his character is the most fun when Monkeybone takes over. I've never seen before "Saturday Night Live's" Chris Kattan. He plays a gymnast with a broken neck whose body Stu inhabits while trying to get his own body back from Monkeybone. He turns in an amazing performance as well and I'd like to see him in more. I do not know the technicalities of animation film making. However, the combination of animation characters with real world actors, like Fraser, is done superbly and seamlessly here. In fact, it might ruin the film for me to know how it is done so I'm just as glad that I don't know.
Read Best Reviews of Monkeybone (2001) Here
If only I had the power to film some additional footage and then re-release this, I think "Monkeybone" would be a much bigger hit, and people would love it a lot more. Sadly, I'm just some punk kid from Maryland, so that's not possible. Yet. The story is very fun, very weird, and more original than most junk that has been released in the past couple of years. Everybody else has already wrote about it, and you can read about the story in the description, so I won't bother. All of the actors fit their roles pretty well, and there isn't anybody who is really irritating. The special effects are great and incredibly atmospheric. I almost want to see a TV series about Downtown, just because it's such an amazing thing to see. The dialogue is usually well-fitting, and there are some really great jokes, as well as some really horrible ones, but there's a very decent balance. So, why give this only 3 stars? Because the beginning was rushed way too much. To begin with, they open it with a cartoon that is meant to be a mood-setter, to show you what the Monkeybone character is like and what the comedy style is like. The cartoon fails miserably. It's not funny at all, and it's just embarrassing to watch. After the cartoon, there are a few attempts to develop Stu, the main character, and his girlfriend. Then they just skip the plot/character development entirely, and send Stu to Downtown. This would be great if they bothered to explain Downtown first, but they didn't, and you sort of have to guess based on what the description of the movie is and a short song that some talking lampposts sing. With maybe twenty minutes of additional footage at the beginning to ease us into the story, this movie would have been gold. I've been told that the deleted scenes/extended scenes on the DVD help the beginning, but I haven't seen them yet, so I can't tell. It's a good movie, but don't give up after the first bit. Stick with it, and you'll be rewarded with a wonderful story about the dream world, and one of the best movie climaxes in history (It reminds me of the Stay-Puft marshmallow man from "Ghostbusters").Want Monkeybone (2001) Discount?
When this movie came out, it both garnered a huge number of really bad reviews and inspired very few people to come see it at the theater. The truth is that while it is by no means a great movie, it isn't at all a bad one, either. I might have found it disappointing in the theater, but at home on a DVD player, it provided a quite enjoyable couple of hours.There is, however, a lot of talent that isn't fully utilized in this film. Most of the weight of the film is placed on the shoulders of Brendan Frasier, and he does his usual excellent job (though I am concerned that, the Mummy series apart, he is starting to get stuck in doofus roles--he is better than that, as GODS AND MONSTERS showed, and I would love to see him in a wider variety of roles). But Bridget Fonda is not really called upon to do much, Whoopi Goldberg has what almost appears as a cameo role, David Foley is a one-dimensional character, and no one else is really called to do very much. The only other actors who really add much to the film are John Turturro voicing Monkeybone and Chris Kattan. I normally loathe Kattan, who is one of the main reasons I haven't been able to watch SNL for several years, but he does a creditable job as an animated corpse in a small but crucial role (the box cover extravagantly exaggerates the size of his role, and seeing him on the cover actually was one of the deterrents to my seeing the film for quite some time).
But the real star of MONKEYBONE is everyone who was involved in the art and set design. Easily the most compelling parts of MONKEYBONE are those where Stu (Brendan Frasier) is stuck in the nightmare world. Harry Selick, the director, also directed both THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, and there is a definite stylistic resemblance between the three films. MONKEYBONE is without question the lesser film of the three, but not at all unwatchable for all that.
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