Hundreds of Beavers

Scott Hardie: “It sucked.”

I take no pleasure in panning a movie like this, a self-evident labor of love for all involved, who clearly worked very, very hard to produce something creative and different and entertaining on what appears to have been a $20 budget. Critics have heaped praise on it for turning its budgetary limitations into a virtue, producing a live-action old-timey cartoon that is filled with slapstick comedy and zero dialogue. And I respect the movie's accomplishment in this regard!

Alas, I do not also find it funny. The sight gags become extremely repetitive, as the movie just churns out variations on the same jokes over and over, as if padding to reach a feature runtime. A few gags are worthy of a chuckle, but since the story barely goes anywhere, the movie just spins its wheels tormenting the hero with pratfalls for what feels like an eternity. Imagine a 5-minute Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner short -- not a series of shorts, but one short -- being stretched to 1 hour 45 minutes, and you approximate the feeling of sitting through this. I kept reaching points where I couldn't tolerate any more of it and turned it off to finish later; that's not a good way for any movie to be seen, particularly an eager-to-please comedy.

I suspect that critics saw it in crowded theaters full of laughter, where it no doubt played better than in my quiet living room. But I'm still disappointed to have disliked a comedy that had such fantastic word-of-mouth. I hope that this leads to better projects for everyone involved.

− December 29, 2024 • more by Scott • log in or create an account to reply