♥♥♥
 |
| Eye-popping CGI creations collide around Jack Black and his 3 young co-stars running on an open book on this lively poster for Rob Letterman's Goosebumps |
Our sweet teenage hero Zach moves with his vice principal widow mother to a quiet Delaware town, where their neighbors are a sweet, same-aged teenage girl and youth horror writer R.L. Stine, whose series of popular novels have a dangerous secret ...
Goosebumps is written by Darren Lemke (Shrek Forever After (2010)), with Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Man on the Moon (1999, both)) contributing story elements, based on the Goosebumps novel series by R.L. Stine (Give Yourself Goosebumps (1995-00)). - Stine is the world's best-selling author: More than 400 mil. Goosebumps novels have been sold; at one point in the 1990s, more than 4 mil. Goosebumps novels were sold a month. The film is directed by Rob Letterman (Shark Tale (2004)).
It is an enthusiastic movie that begins with a charming mother-son chemistry (hunky Dylan Minnette (The Open House (2018)) and Amy Ryan (Green Zone (2010))); Jillian Bell (Bridesmaids (2011)) as a fun aunt and Jack Black (Bernie (2011)) enjoyable as Stine, whose entire body of work (or, more precisely, a carefully selected group of ghouls from it) comes to life in one single film. Zach also has a fun 'loser' friend called Champ (Ryan Lee (Song of Back and Neck (2018)).) The filmmakers behind Goosebumps are obviously very comfortable signing over their special effects needs to CGI teams, and the film has good-looking creatures (the werewolf and garden gnomes especially), but the digitally created environment is also clearly artificial, blocking any wow-reaction, which is a real loss.
The editing pace is too short of breath, so the emotional beats of the story never ground themselves. It moves over hedge and ditch, this Jumanji-like experience, which is formulaic and not all that one could have wished for, but certainly entertains.
Related posts:
Rob Letterman: 2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Gulliver's Travels (2010) or, Gulliver's Travesty
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 58-84 mil. $ (different reports)
Box office: 158.2 mil. $
= Uncertain - big flop or a box office success, depending on the actual cost (returned 1.88 - 2.72 times its cost, depending on the actual cost)
[Goosebumps premiered 3 October (San Diego Film Festival) and runs 103 minutes. Development began in 1998 with Tim Burton slated to direct. Black reportedly received 6-8 mil. $ for his performance; Minnette 150k $. Shooting took place from April - July 2014 in Georgia, including Atlanta. The film opened #1 to a 23.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 3 weeks in the top 5 (#2-#2-#4) and grossed 80 mil. $ (50.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 13 mil. $ (8.2 %) and Venezuela (!) with 7.9 mil. $ (5 %). Ari Sandel directed the smaller hit sequel Goosebumps: Haunted Halloween (2018), with Black back as Stine. Letterman returned with Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019). Black returned in The Little Shop of Horrors (2015, video), Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Scroll (2016, short) and theatrically with a voice performance in Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016); Minnette in Don't Breathe (2016). Goosebumps is certified fresh at 78 % with a 6.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Goosebumps?
No comments:
Post a Comment