Load of rubbish!!

Excellent but underrated film

A Masterpiece!

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Matt LeBlanc, like all his Friends castmates, was testing the waters of film, but "Ed" was perhaps a misfortune that tainted any hopes of success during the late 90s (he would recover, but not in film necessarily). The animatronics wizardry aside of the Ed chimp, this film was not exactly wisely conceived. A chimp playing baseball, outperforming players on the field, and throwing a ball so hard and fast it smoked through the mitts of his teammates is a bit too far-fetched for many of us to accept. This is silly nonsense meant to give kiddies the giggles. My son was finding it entertaining, at least. On the most juvenile level, "Ed" might be tolerable, but I personally found it particularly ridiculous. Jayne Brook is well cast as a single mother love interest for LeBlanc, who stars as a fastball pitching prospect who just can't get his act together *on the field*, even though it's clear his stuff could be good if he could not give up hits and homeruns. Poor Jack Warden is stuck in the role of minor league manager, trying to bring some veteran mojo to this critically brutalized comedy. I just felt bad for the late actor. His talent is so superior to such piffle as this. LeBlanc is rather trapped in a humiliating misfire here. This is the kind of film that leaves a lasting stain. The chimp driving the truck with a drunk Matt in the passenger's seat bumping around, and Ed turning cartwheels in flight catching hit balls further elaborates how stupid this all is. Just for those kids who find such primate antics cute or masochists who like to revel in bad comedies.

At first Ed seemed like it could pass for a children's movie but a caution to parents of young children, parts of this movie are rude and crude. For example, Ed and Matt LeBlancs characters sharing bathroom scenes including in your face pooping loudly on the toilet that definitely didn't add to this movie in my opinion. The baseball games are the best part of the movie with a very tan Matt LeBlanc acting goofy. The little girl acts much older than her age only because she is using adult language and I don't think that ever comes off well. The chimpanzee seems a little real at first but one can quickly see that someone is in a chimpanzee costume as the eyes look real goofy. The sounds from the chimp didn't sound real and must not have been natural-like or my dog would have gone crazy. He watches and listens for animals and he remained bored with this movie except for the dog parts. The end.

I saw this for my 12th birthday party because my mom wouldn't take us to anything rated PG-13 or higher. So I had to pick between Ed and Homeward Bound 2. I wasn't excited about either but I went with Ed because of the baseball angle. To this day, 14 years later everyone who was at that party, kids and adults, are united in agreement that it was the worst movie we've ever seen. I've tried to rewatch it a few times and show it to my fiancé' just to laugh at how bad it is but I can't even do that. We made it through 15 minutes and she couldn't take anymore. It's completely devoid of entertainment and all the other reviews have captured the reasons why. Every now and then I like to read the comments about it and chuckle because we still talk about how bad that movie was all these years later.

Even for a kids' movie, the premise to ED is incredibly lame. So lame that it boggles the mind to imagine that this film was made in the first place. I can only assume that the writers and execs at the studio were under the influence of some mind-altering drug while they were watching a re-run of a "Francis the Mule" film or else had loved ones kidnapped in order to force this film to be made. This is the only way you could understand this film. Even the worst of the most contrived Disney films of the 1960s and 70s look like "Gone With the Wind" compared to this! Matt LeBlanc stars as a guy who has a great pitching arm. However, when his game stinks, the manager punishes him by sending him to pick someone up at the bus stop. That 'someone' turns out to be a baseball playing chimp who is the team's new mascot. When I first saw this chimp, he really looked creepy--and I assume it was just a midget in an ape suit. It looked more realistic than chimps looked in films in 1940, but still looked bizarre and a bit scary! Well, only in a movie would it turn out that the chimp was a fantastic baseball player--with an arm like a rocket AND a thorough knowledge of how to play ball! How all the actors were able to participate in this farce of a film with straight faces is beyond me. Talk about an insane plot! Even small children would find this tough to swallow. However, given that he ultimately is SMARTER than LeBlanc isn't quite as hard to believe (at least in light of his role on "Friends").Some of the low-points in this dreadful film include frequent fart jokes, snot jokes, Ed and LeBlanc both peeing together at the same toilet, belching, Ed driving a truck at what appears to be 400 mph, more fart jokes and Ed plying dress-up with grandma's clothes. At no point in the film is it clever or does it poke fun of itself (the only way this MIGHT have worked).Overall, a sorry mess of a film that is so inexplicably dumb that I can't believe it was made in the first place. Practically every cliché known to baseball is in this film and its only entertainment value is for people who want to laugh at the sheer inanity of the movie. Clearly, this film has earned its place on IMDb's Bottom 100 list!