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| Star Brendan Fraser encircled in a virtual vortex of craziness on a poster for Henry Selick's Monkeybone |
A cartoonist who has created a vulgar monkey character which is about to premiere as a major animation feature, goes into a coma after an incredible accident. He winds up in a pre-death world created by his nightmares.
Monkeybone is written by Sam Hamm (Masters of Horror (2005-06)), based on the graphic novel Dark Town (1995) by Kaja Blackley, and directed by New Jerseyite master filmmaker Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)), whose 3rd feature it is.
It is a very lopsided film, clearly inspired by Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988). Unfortunately it doesn't come together as a satisfying whole.
Brendan Fraser (Still Breathing (1997)) gives it his all in the very demanding lead role that's also reminiscent of the Nutty Professor/Buddy Love dynamic (in the guise of Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor (1996)), as he plays the zany, vulgar monkey that's inhabited his cartoonist self in parts of the film, which can't but make one wonder what the !%#!! the financiers of Monkeybone were thinking. Audiences unsurprisingly didn't board this enormously budgeted, interesting visually and FX-wise, lavish serving of uncontrolled WTF.
Much of Monkeybone looks like something for children, - and Fraser's appeal at the time also leads one to imagine so, - but Monkeybone is decidedly not suitable for children; it is a unique kind of head-scratching box office disaster.
Related posts:
Henry Selick: 2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Top 10: The best adaptations reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Coraline (2009) - Selick's otherworldly masterpiece
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 75 mil. $
Box office: 7.6 mil. $
= Box office disaster (returned 0.10 times its cost)
[Monkeybone was released 23 February (USA) and runs 92 minutes. Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, from June - October 1999. Selick is rumored to have been fired as director some time towards the end of making the film by studio Fox in an attempt to make it more mainstream, possibly replaced by executive producer Chris Columbus. The film opened #11 to a 2.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, its peak there, where it grossed 5.4 mil. $ (71.1 % of the total gross). The foreign gross numbers have not been made public at Box Office Mojo. Roger Ebert gave the film a 1.5/4 star review, translating to a notch harder than this one. Selick returned with Moongirl (2005, short) and theatrically with masterpiece Coraline (2009). Fraser returned in The Mummy Returns (2001); Bridget Fonda (Camilla (1994)) in Kiss of the Dragon (2001). Monkeybone is rotten at 19 % with a 3.96/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Monkeybone?
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