North

Roger Ebert started his review out by saying, “I have no idea why Rob Reiner, or anyone else, wanted to make this story into a movie, and close examination of the film itself is no help. "North" is one of the most unpleasant, contrived, artificial, cloying experiences I've had at the movies. To call it manipulative would be inaccurate; it has an ambition to manipulate, but fails.”

The film stars Elijah Wood, who was a wonderful child actor (Ebert pointed out, “and if you don't believe me, watch his version of "The Adventures of Huck Finn").” Here he is stuck in a story that no actor, however great, however young, should be punished with. He plays a kid with distracted parents, who decides to go into court, emancipate himself from them, and travel the world to search for nicer parents. This is all helped by his friend Winchell (Matthew McCurley) and his aid Arthur Belt (Jon Lovitz).

This idea is greatly flawed. Ebert is right when he said, “Children do not lightly separate from their parents - and certainly not on the evidence provided here, where the great parental sin is not paying attention to their kid at the dinner table.” The parents, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander, have provided little North with what looks like a million-dollar house in a Frank Capra neighborhood, all on his dad’s income as a pants inspector. Ebert said, “And, yes, I know that is supposed to be a fantasy, but the pants-inspecting jokes are only the first of several truly awful episodes in this film.”

Ebert said, “North goes into court, where the judge is Alan Arkin, proving without the slightest shadow of a doubt that he should never, ever appear again in public with any material even vaguely inspired by Groucho Marx. North's case hits the headlines, and since he is such an all-star overachiever, offers pour in from would-be parents all over the world, leading to an odyssey that takes him to Texas, Hawaii, Alaska, and elsewhere.”

What is the point of the scenes with the auditioning parents? (The victimized actors range from Dan Aykroyd and Reba McEntire as Texans, Keone Young and Lauren Tom as Hawaiians, Alexander Godunov and Kelly McGillis as Amish parents, Abe Vigoda, Graham Greene, and Kathy Bates as Eskimos). They are all seen as broad, desperate comic cartoons. They are not funny. They are not touching. There is no truth in them. They don’t even work as parodies. There is an absurdity here that seems almost intentional, as if the filmmakers thought to leave anything of interest or entertainment value out of these segments. We also have Faith Ford, John Ritter, Scarlett Johansson, and Jesse Ziegler as a nice family, but for some reason, North doesn’t feel like he belongs there.

North is followed on his journey by a mysterious character who appears in many disguises. He is the Easter bunny, a cowboy, a beach guy, a standup comic, and a Federal Express driver who works in several product plugs.

North thinks it is funny the guy looks familiar. That’s because he is. All of the appearances are played by Bruce Willis, who is not funny, or helpful, in any of them.

I can understand what Ebert meant when he said, “I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.”

Ebert continued, “I hold it as an item of faith that Rob Reiner is a gifted filmmaker; among his credits are "This Is Spinal Tap," "The Sure Thing," "The Princess Bride," "Stand By Me," "When Harry Met Sally...," and "Misery." I list those titles as an incantation against this one.”

“North,” released in 1994, is a bad film – one of the worst made that year, maybe ever. Ebert ended his review by saying, “But it is not by a bad filmmaker, and must represent some sort of lapse from which Reiner will recover - possibly sooner than I will.”

What were people thinking when making this film? At first, it feels like a harmless family comedy until it goes on to offend all these people. The Texans want to fat up North so he can be like their son who died in a stampede, the Hawaiians want to put North on a billboard where an octopus pulls down his speedo, mooning people into thinking it will promote tourism, the Eskimos say goodbye to their elders before sailing them off into the sea where they die with dignity. Ok, when that was done, it was done in time of famine and was extremely rare, only done as a last resort. Also, no one does that anymore! At least they had Graham Greene in here, but why did they spray paint Kathy Bates and made her into an Eskimo? Don't they know how offensive all of this is to others? And how is it that North travels all over (Texas, Hawaii, Alaska, China, Africa, France) and not find a single family that he likes? On top of that, why are NONE of the jokes funny!? Siskel and Ebert said this film was first-class junk, it made Ebert cringe, and Siskel said they felt unclean just sitting there thinking about it.

If you get a chance to pass this film up and never see it, don’t. I saw this briefly as a child and as a teen and I thought nothing of it, but it wasn’t until I saw the Nostalgia Critic’s review of it that I went back and saw it. Boy is that a mistake I highly regret making. I can’t believe that such a great director, Rob Reiner, could have even thought of such a dirty idea. This is one of the worst decisions that any director has made.

Sadly, we’re going to have to end off “Dan Aykroyd Month” with another bad movie. Hold on to your vomit bags next week to find out. In the meantime, I’m going to clean off after typing up this review.