Sharon Halstead
Good solid family film with some seriously (really) laugh out loud scenes so I highly recommend making the effort to find and watch it. Bill Murray is his usual droll, understated great self and one of the best scenes comes when he is driving a big rig-I laughed so hard my ribs hurt...no joke. I was also delighted to find a young Matthew McConaughey playing a hilariously over the top lunatic of a truck driver. It's worth watching just to see his performance and I wonder if this is the role that got him noticed. Seriously folks, if you ever get a chance, WATCH THIS MOVIE!!!
grizzledgeezer
This could have been a stupid, idiotic film. Well, actually, it /is/ a stupid, idiotic film. But it works, mostly because of Bill Murray's performance.A man who has to unload his father's trained elephant does not make for a promising story, comic or dramatic. What makes this film work is Murray's generally laid-back performance. His character -- a motivational instructor who teaches patient and thoughtful behavior -- displays such. He rarely gets badly upset, and there's little of the frantic slapstick one would expect from other actors. (I suspect Roy Blount was consciously writing such a story.) When a reviewer states that the film misses the obvious sight gags its premise suggests -- well, that's the point of it, right?This isn't a film that demands a second viewing. But it's far better than you might expect, and its refusal to assault the viewer is welcome. It's a perfect film when you don't want to watch anything demanding.PS: I just love the parents who say this (and other films) are good family films because they lack sex, violence, adult language, etc. Unfortunately, most such films are garbage that pervert a child's taste.
Wizard-8
I remember back in 1996 when I saw the trailer and television commercials for LARGER THAN LIFE - just seeing them, I *knew* that this was going to be a box office bomb. And I was right. This was not a case of a good movie being horribly marketed - this was a case of the badness of the movie being shown all too clearly.What went wrong? Well, I think that the main problem of the movie centers around the fact that pretty much all the events of the movie center around an elephant. Elephants are slow creatures, and although they can be trained to perform some tricks, they are still far from being creatures with a real charismatic personality. (Maybe if they got a quicker, wittier creature like a chimpanzee or a dog, it could have worked.) As a result of this movie being weighed down by an enormously ungraceful creature, there is no energy here. Even Murray, who has been quick and funny in other movies, seems overwhelmed. He does well in the opening scene where he's a motivational speaker, because he has *humans* to work with. When he's paired with the elephant, the energy immediately fades away.One question that's never answered in the movie is: Why doesn't Murray's character just hire someone to take the elephant to the west coast? It would be a lot less hassle, and Murray's character wouldn't have to skip his lecture dates. The fact that Murray's character doesn't do the obvious thing helps point out that the premise this script had was deeply flawed even before writing began.
Tari_Nolatari
I beg you not to see this movie! This is the worst movie I have ever seen in my life. Bill Murray + an elephant + no script (was there a script? I can't remember because I was too busy crying in pain at this terrible excuse for a movie) = the worst time of your life.Don't pay to see this movie - don't even watch it for free at a friend/relatives house. If anyone suggests that you should watch it at some point in your life, shoot them and run. Run as fast as you can and don't look back. I didn't even see this movie by choice - I went with a group of friends for someone's birthday when I was 12. I curse that day and the time that this movie took away from me. This is a kid's movie but any self-respecting smart child would not want to see this inflammatory pile of elephant droppings.
AD
