j* Movie Reviews 2019

The Banana Splits Movie (2019)

Who are these muppets?

These are not from my era of tv. Closest I come to knowing about them is Liz Phair's 1995 cover of the Tra-la-la Song. Which means the theme song gave me confused 90s vibes whenever they sung it.

Anyway, I absolutely couldn't get into it. It looks well made enough, but there was just no emotion in it at all - maybe fans of the show have brought so much of their own personal backstory to this that it isn't needed? But still, a horror about kids-show costume characters going evil should be entertaining, should it not?

That's the gist of it. The costume characters, who are robots, go a bit wild, death and gore ensues. I found their interpretation of their robotic-ness wildly inconsistent, sometimes they moved like robot dancers complete with a soundscape of robotic creaking and beeping, and sometimes they just ran around like humans in suits.

There's a bit of a Willy Wonka undercurrent. A mad-mech engineer. Quite a few baddies in the form of a Dad/stepDad, a studio manager... probably a few other people along the way. But the Splits never seemed very conclusively motivated, and honestly, I expected to be way more creeped out by the premise. Maybe there's some things I just can't find scary... I also find clowns a bit nothing, even when they're meant to be scary.

I also wondered if it was because (Australian) 90s kids tv was just so naturally freaky/scary as a matter of course that these seemed a bit nothing? List of 90s kids things that seemed spookier than this film:

>Lotis & EC and the talking backpacks of Lift Off

>Anything in Round The Twist

>Elly & Jools (honestly, guy who is stalked by ghost girl...)

>Spellbinders - multi-dimensional evil crossing over from the other dimension.

>That show with the super freaky clock thing... not Playschool, that other show. You know, that freaky, freaky, freaky clock.

>Megalomaniacal mouse practicing a range of terrorist activities in quest for world domination (Pinky & The Brain).

>Trapdoor. Don't you open that Trapdoor, you're a fool if you dare.

>The Ferals... don't get me wrong they don't really scare me, but compared to the Banana Splits they are very naturally scary... they look so wrong and totally not loveable.

Anyway, my mate is of the era and has a super strong attachment to these costume characters. Just like the main kid character, Snorky is his favourite, which I think only made him enjoy it more. He rates it so highly he says it might be movie of the year.

J* gives it 1 star.

PS. I know I keep harping on for live action Captain Planet, but honestly, how amazing could *live action* Pinky & the Brain be?! Imagine it now, Pink & The Brain as CGI mice, creating great destructive forces and chaos... I'd cast them as the super-baddies and then have some big action hero saving the day.