Netflix Self-Torture Experiment Trilogy #21: Funky Monkey
Man, this better be one funky motherfucking monkey or else I’m in for 80+ minutes of serious mental anguish.
Synopsis from Netflix: A boy genius (Seth Adkins) discovers the meaning of friendship with the help of a chimpanzee called Clemens and its martial-arts expert owner (Matthew Modine) in this comedy directed by Gene Quintano. The boy agrees to assist the two in their battle against an evil animal laboratory — in exchange for advice that’ll help him gain the attentions of his school crush and play football like a jock.
My thoughts: With movies of this type I’m always secretly hopeful that they’ll surprise me by being unexpectedly funny because I really do have a pretty juvenile sense of humor. For instance, I defy anyone to tell me that Good Burger and Heavyweights are not hilarious films. At the very least, a movie like Funky Monkey could have just a scene or two which crack me up to redeem itself a little (see: Monkey Trouble). No such luck here. From start to finish, it’s nothing but irritating fight sequences against incompetent bad guys and cheesy montages of the kid learning to play football. Oh yeah, and the monkey plays football at the end.
Free movie idea for Hollywood executives: Clemens the funky monkey vs. Air Bud: Golden Receiver in the Super Bowl or something. It’d be like Alien vs. Predator except with animals playing football. So…nothing like Alien vs. Predator really. Still, I think it could work. [One out of five stars.]
