moviesrme10 This is a very displeasing film from Brendan Fresher's hit or miss film bag. While the idea original, and the voice work from John Turturro as Monkey bone is top notch, this film just feels too dark for kids and too random for anyone else. There's just no effort to make the plot watchable. Everything just breezes through, with loads of unfunny, random scenes, with one dimensional characters. The animation is unbearable and the world of the coma is ugly and dark. Brendan Frasher gives an OK performance and the jokes are just not there. Mostly this is just a forgettable film that came out in a February. he character development is horrible and we just don't find any reason to enjoy the story or to want Brendan's character to come out of a coma. D-

FlashCallahan Life couldn't be better for cartoonist Stu Miley. He has created a hit comic strip, Monkeybone and is happy and in love with his beautiful girlfriend Julie.On the night Stu is to propose to Julie, he is struck down in a freak accident. While Stu's body lies comatose - and Julie maintains a constant bedside vigil - his conscious spirit is transported to Downtown, a purgatory-like limbo existing between life.Upon his arrival, Stu learns his ominous fate: There's no turning back. And just as things seem like they couldn't get any worse, Stu's alter ego, Monkeybone, springs to life to stir up some trouble. Stu must outwit Death in order to return to the world of the living before the doctors pull the plug on Stu's life support....This film has so much in common with 1992's Cool World, that you could be forgiven for watching the same thing. Both colourful characters want to escape to the real world, both cannot decide to entertain young ones or adults, and both are very boring indeed.This has the edge on the other though, Fraser is likable, and Fonda is as good as ever. The main problems are when we are in the other world, it appears that Selick has taken Burtons Beetlejuice world and made it boring an unimaginative.And this is the other problem, there is no imagination, and the effects are terrible for such a big movie. Deserved of its box office, it's a film that won't tarnish any actors name, because it's a movie about nothing.Stick with Beetlejuice and Nightmare Before Christmas.

Kevin Quirk He does it again ladies and gentlemen. Our boy is back with a brand new edition...and this time ...hes... brought... Whoopie! Mr. Fraser does an amazing job playing not only one but two roles of extreme eyeball pleasure. B.F.'s last seemingly effortless journey left us ...Bedazzled? And so will this. If you love movies that involve not only animated characters with purple gas but Chris Kattan then you will absolutely adore this hilarious romp through reality and B.F.eality. Thats right, we're in his head people and we can't get out but ask yourself, Would you really want to? Some young new hotshot, Bob Odenkirk, enjoyed a role but of course paled in comparison to the performance of Stu Miley...dreamer...comic book artist...giggler...Brendan Fraser.

DAVID SIM Henry Selick is one of the most underrated filmmakers at work in Hollywood today. He hasn't many features under his belt, but that's because of the effort he invests in his projects. His films take years to complete. Selick's trademark as a director is his love of stop-motion animation, where hand-crafted figures are manipulated an inch at a time. Its a lengthy, time-consuming process that requires a great deal of patience, but in all the films he's made, his perseverance has paid off, and he's turned out some truly stunning work.Although The Nightmare Before Christmas is credited as a Tim Burton film, it was directed by Selick. Together they created a breathtaking world, unlike any I've ever seen before or since. Selick then moved on to the adaptation of James and the Giant Peach, another excellent film. Both were box-office flops sadly, and Selick continues to struggle to find funding for his films as a result. And now we have Monkeybone, a film that attempts to merge stop-motion with live-action.Of Selick's films so far, Monkeybone feels the least satisfying. Maybe because it doesn't quite have the intelligence he brought to his previous work. This is pitched at a much more juvenile level. Brendan Fraser plays Stu Miley, a cartoonist who is the creator of Monkeybone, a wacky wisecracking chimp. After Stu gets in a car crash, he slips into a coma.And winds up in a bizarre buffer-zone between the land of the living and the dead. Populated by strange creatures of all kinds, even Stu's creation Monkeybone is here as a nightclub act. If Stu ever wants to wake up, he has to get an exit pass from Death (Whoopi Goldberg) to return to the waking world. Monkeybone helps him get one, but double-crosses him at the last moment, uses the pass to escape, wakes up in full control of Stu's body, where he wreaks havoc.There's quite a clever idea at the heart of Monkeybone. A figment of your imagination made flesh that tries to take over your life. But although Henry Selick can work marvels when it comes to the animated world, he seems less sure of himself when it comes to live action. When Selick directed James and the Giant Peach, the stop-motion scenes were wonderful, and carried by considerable charm and energy. But he bookended the film with live-action, and its clearly a medium he's not as comfortable in. Because Monkeybone relies on a lot of live-action, the film suffers as a result.A lot of the live-action scenes tend to degenerate into slapstick farce. An approach that would work fine in animation, but less so in live-action. Brendan Fraser is well suited to this type of material, and he plays the part of Monkeybone with a lot of enthusiasm, but I am starting to get a bit fed up of this kind of shtick that Fraser stars in, because its beginning to seem like the only kind of thing he can do.The most interesting aspects of Monkeybone are inside Stu's mind, where his consciousness is trapped in Downtown, a sort of waystation for lost souls. This is the part of the film that really comes alive, because Downtown's an extraordinary, eye-popping piece of set-design.Its filled with so many details I'm not sure where to begin in describing it. Its like a lunatic carnival if lorded over by Tim Burton. And the way Selick merges stop-motion animated creatures with live actors is quite remarkable. There are too many bizarre creatures to keep track of. Cyclops'. Yellow bulls. Giant sized wasps. But its just as astonishing as HalloweenTown, and even occasionally surpasses that inspired creation through sheer invention.The human cast is OK. Rose McGowan lends fine support as a catgirl who lives in Downtown. The sight of her in a catsuit is worth the price of admission alone! And Whoopi Goldberg makes a nicely exasperated Death.But Monkeybone is less than the sum of its parts. Its a film that doesn't go far enough. And substitutes crude toilet humour when the invention runs out. A failing that works against the film is the character of Monkeybone himself. He's not really an interesting character. He's just some obnoxious chimp who looks like he's wandered in from another film.Sadly, Monkeybone was another flop for Selick. Granted I was a little disappointed with it, especially when compared to Selick's previous work. Even if it has moments of real inspired lunacy, its just not up to the high standards of Henry Selick, and only seems to add a further nail into the coffin of his flagging career. And he's a man who really deserves much better.