Movies Reviews

Furry Vengeance Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Apr 30, 2010, 16:34 GMT

A sarcastic city kid is uprooted to the Oregon countryside after his father moves them there to build a housing subdivision. Father and son then have to battle with local wildlife who are fed up with intrusions into their land. ...more

Here’s another example of a comedy using dopey parents as punching bags to delight youngsters.  Brendan Fraser and Brooke Shields lose their integrity as a married couple who are entrenched in a lifestyle that’s killing their integrity, but they can’t see it.  He’s a residential developer about to pave over a forest for monster ‘country’ home tract oblivious to the ripple effect of destruction such projects create. 

Fraser is an over worked, stressed sad sack whose wife and son dismiss him and his dreams and cast demeaning looks his way.  His attempts to win their favour always backfire and he’s finally developed a conscience about the work he’s doing.  He tries too hard and it’s painful to watch.  Is this supposed to be funny?

Shields’ character does the thinking for for both of them, as he’s completely focussed on hanging on to a job which means being locked in a destructive, co-dependent dance with his sneering boss (Ken Jeong).  Their son’s righteous and totally embarrassed by his parents.  Again this isn’t funny, it’s uncomfortable.

The animals who live in the woods are banding together to stop the development, they communicate and strategise and generally co-operate far better than the humans.  And they have some heavy artillery; each animal has his own unique weapon or skill in the war to save their forest home.  There’s nothing subtle about their warfare.  And they’re pretty cute at times.  In fact, they’re very cute.  It’s too bad there are people in the film with them.

The humans are unendingly problematic; they are the careless smokers, the garbage makers, the tree – cutters, labouring hard for the almighty dollar and against Mother Nature.  They are the ones who hurt each other and play politics and humiliation games and wonder why they’re so stressed.  You can see the outcome miles away.  The cute are bound to win.  It’s called Furry Vengeance after all. 

This is a movie for very young children and one can only hope they’ll soon forget it.  And let’s hope they don’t pick up tips on how to belittle their parents.  The film’s heart is in the right place with its strong environmental message and there are winning performances by Jeong and Ricky Garcia.

It’s interesting that Fraser co-produced it with Imagenation Abu Dhabi FZ, an up-and-coming production company that brought us Amreeka last year and has full slate of interesting releases this year and next.

35mm comedy
Written by Michael Carnes, Josh Gilbert
Directed by Roger Kumble
Opens: April 30
MPAA: Rated PG for some rude humor, mild language and brief smoking
Runtime: 92 minutes
Country: USA/United Arab Emirates
Language: English