Truly Dreadful Film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

One of the best films of 2001, highly recommended for Brendan Fraser heads. He really shows off his versatility in this movie, acting as more then one character (a monkey even !) This movie was funny but parts of it were also a bit creepy at time. Whoopie Goldberg was really funny in this one, her sassy attitude was funny. I also enjoyed when they were in Monkeybone world it reminded me of nightmare before Christmas. However if your watching this with your younger kids than i might recommend screening it first so you can hide the scary parts :)older kids can watch monkeybone no problemFavorite quote: 'The woman I love is living with a horny little monkey that looks like me!'

Henry Selick is a very talented man. He proved this talent when he directed "A Nightmare Before Christmas" (It's a shame so many fans of that movie just assume Tim Burton directed it and ignore Selick's achievement.) and made great use of his team of talented animators to bring Burton's original idea to life. Selick once again proved himself a good director with the stunted but visually stunning (And still somewhat enjoyable) adaptation of "James & The Giant Peach." Recently, Selick did yet another fantastic piece of cinema with "Coraline;" but in-between James & The Giant Peach and Coraline... there was Monkeybone.Something tells me Selick regrets this one. Monkeybone is a film in which Selick sells himself short. His talents are on display in several portions of the film, and yet some portions are clumsily directed. Yet even if the whole film had been as visually impressive as his other works and as tightly directed, the movie would still fail with the script it is given. I have not read the graphic novel "Dark Town," so maybe I should cut the script-writers some slack and blame whoever wrote "Dark Town" for inspiring this lazy, immature, and often annoying script.The film follows animator Stu Miley, creator of a popular animated show called "Monkeybone," about a mischievous and perverted monkey that lives inside a timid students backpack. Stu gets in a car accident, and is sent into a coma. He soon finds himself in an abstract and insane underworld where he meets Monkeybone, who promptly sets out to drive Stu (and the viewers) insane. Stu wants to return home, but is duped by a devil in pajamas named Hypno - who instead, sends Monkeybone into Stu's body.The problem with Monkeybone is that the "humor" if you will, is immature and insulting. We are shown a Monkeybone cartoon early on, and it is cringe worthy. It baffles me how some people in the movie claim that the show is a children's cartoon as it is wildly inappropriate; and more-over, I don't know how any adult could laugh at such juvenile material. The cartoon focuses on how the Student is sexually attracted to his old teachers huge, sagging flaps of arm fat. He gets an erection, and Monkeybone (Who more or less is an anthropomorphic erection. Goody.) pops out and starts harassing the teacher while the student is humiliated for his quite visible erection. Funny? No? Well, get used to that kind of humor and trust me, it gets worse unless you REALLY like fart jokes.It is a shame that so much talent has to be wasted here. Brendan Fraser is actually fairly likable as Stu Miley (However when Monkeybone takes over his body, he becomes annoying and only makes Monkeybone's character more annoying as well.) and Selick has once again brought on board tons of playful and creative visuals. Monkeybone is animated quite well using stop-motion, and arguably the best part of the whole picture is the underworld and its abstract, bizarre, and downright weird denizens. There are even a few jokes that work through these weird visuals, like the Grim-Reapers mode of transportation being a little tricycle or how the gate leading back to the real world is known as "The Great Emancipator" and fittingly, the exit appears as a giant Abraham Lincoln head. There is also a genuinely disturbing (Yet memorable) scene in which Stu is forced into one of the nightmares that he himself painted years ago, where Selick shows off yet another fantastic visual effect that only makes me wish the films script was redeemable.However, when the film takes place in our world - it is clumsily directed and is made twice as painful to sit through due to the lack of any creative visuals. Monkeybone was already annoying in the underworld, but when he takes Stu's body - actor Brendan Fraser goes from likable to cringe worthy. The on-going shtick is that Monkeybone is still an animal, and acts like one and is hyper-active, perverted, and crude. One of the most insultingly idiotic scenes is when Monkeybone gets turned on by watching animals mate on The Discover Channel, and then we are forced to a 5 minute scene of him doing a bizarre sexual display in nothing but his underpants hooting like a monkey and doing a mix of dancing and animalistic moves. Barf. Oh, and did I mention he wants to give everyone nightmares by giving out monkey bone toys that fart nightmare gas? Yeah.All in all this is bad - really, really bad. I would have given it a rating of 2 if it had not been for the fantastic visuals in the underworld, and one genuinely funny scene where Stu is in prison in the underworld and runs into the likes of Stephen King and Genghis Khan. That means this gets a 4. It's a shame because you can catch glimpses of Selick's talents, but the script is just too clumsy, offensive, and rude to be enjoyable.

"Monkeybone" should be taught in film school as an example of how many smart, talented people can come together to make a movie that is a complete mess. I expected this to be a wacky, weird film when first seeing it. However, all the jokes fall flat because the premise is underdeveloped, most of the characters (most especially the title character) are half-baked, and the story is full of plot holes and developments that merit further explanation.Brendan Fraser plays Stu Miley, a cartoonist who creates an adult cartoon show called "Monkeybone". In the beginning of the film, you see part of an episode that is well-animated (probably using Flash) about a manic monkey who pops out of nowhere and causes mischief. The reason this cartoon differentiates from other manic cartoon characters like Roger Rabbit or Woody Woodpecker is because he appears when the boy in the cartoon has an erection. Long story.It is with this cartoon that you get a sampling for what Monkeybone is like, but it's not enough to tell you what makes him so unique and appealing compared to other cartoon characters. More on that later. It is soon determined that the series has been picked up by a Comedy Central-like cable network (referred to as "The Comedy Channel" in this movie. Comedy Central could have put their brand on this movie, but it's a good thing they decided not to).Although Stu doesn't initially like the merchandising that takes place for his cartoon creation, he still takes some samples home with him. However, he gets into a car accident after complications with a giant Monkeybone balloon blowing up in his car. Again, long story.This car crash knocks him unconscious, even though we don't see him get knocked out by the crash. Although the wound mark on his head doesn't look serious, he slips into a coma, and into another world that seems to be a combination of "Cool World" (1992) and "Beetlejuice" (1988). This world is filled with strange creatures, some human and some animal. Sooner or later, he runs into a CGI-animated version of his creation, voiced by John Turturro.As soon as Stu falls into this world, the movie gets really confusing. It is not determined or said what this world is and why it is the way it is. Is it Stu's subconscious, or another dimension altogether? Obviously he came up with Monkeybone, but did he create the other characters in his mind, like the Egypsian cat lady waitress (Rose McGowan)? None of this is ever answered or explained by anyone in the movie. Brendan Fraser, who is normally a good actor, doesn't seem to wonder about this world he's in long enough. He may have been wondering during the film how his agent had convinced him to sign onto such a fractured movie.Regardless, in the conscious world, his girlfriend (Bridget Fonda) tries to get him out of a coma, while his sister (Megan Mullally) seems all too eager to pull the plug on him. There is nothing funny about Mullally in her role. It's never established exactly why she wants her brother off of life support. She doesn't seem to hate her brother, nor does she ever mention her share of "Monkeybone" royalties. Such subplots could have made for interesting conflict, but because neither of these things are explained, we just have a sad case of a woman who, despite being very funny on "Will and Grace", has made bad decisions in regards to movie roles.Back in the subconscious cluster-flub of a world, Stu must get an "Exit Pass" from Death (Whoopi Goldberg) in order to regain consciousness. His annoying monkey alter ego works with him to cheat death, then ends up taking the pass himself and taking over Stu's conscious mind when he awakens from a coma. What results is Brendan Fraser acting like a monkey, only he's really bad at it. It would have been funny if the filmmakers dubbed Turturro's high-pitched voice into Fraser's speech. Also, Fraser seems to forget he's a monkey most of the time, only occasionally swinging on limbs and doing other acrobatic tricks associated with the main character.The big thing that makes Fraser unfunny from being taken over by his cartoon counterpart is the fact that we still really don't know that monkey. What are his motivations? What can't he live without? Why is his mission to give people bad dreams (another subplot brought about, but not fully explained), and what does he gain from this mission being accomplished? We don't get any of that. Instead, Fraser has a cringe-worthy scene where he, possessed by Monkeybone, publicly proposes to Fonda and then sings "Brick House". Again, why? Explain, movie, EXPLAIN!!!I like Brendan Fraser a lot, which is why it kills me that this movie was so bad. What's even more disappointing is that the film is directed by Henry Selick, director of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993) and "Coraline" (2009). Those movies told great stories, and the stop motion animation was flawless. Mostly, though, the movies would not have worked without a coherent story line.My guess is that this film suffered from what's known as Groupthink. Groupthink is when a group of intelligent people get together and collectively make a bad decision, resulting from one or more people being too afraid to speak up and say the decision is bad, or convincing themselves the decision is good. It is what is believed to have caused the Bay of Pigs fiasco in the early '60's, and the tragic Challenger shuttle launch in 1986. Clearly, intelligent, talented filmmakers worked on this film. Unfortunately, someone should have spoken up and said what a mess they were creating.

Henry Sellick is a director you could call a 'visionary.' His films are always visually stunning and well thought out for the eyes, and MonkeyBone is no exception. The UnderWorld is beautifully realized and there's a sequence where the main character enters one of his old nightmares that looks like the secret, forbidden love child of Salvador Dahli and David Lynch. Awesome. So what does the movie do with this premise? Farts. Yes, the entire film revolves around Farts. The entire plot boils down to an undead monkey taking his creators body just so he can give people nightmare with evil farts. If you are still laughing after Fart Joke #5,000 (About 20 minutes into the movie) then MonkeyBone is probably your kind of film. If you want something with a lick of intelligence, you might want to look somewhere else.The direction is great and I admit, I like Brendan Fraiser as the star, but it just cant be saved by good production values. The disjointed plot and lame jokes (With a few far and between exceptions, like when Stu is in prison in the Underworld and meets up with a few famous figures, including Stephen King who had a run in with Cujo. That scene was at least worth one guffaw or two.) make MonkeyBone a terrible film. If you love the Gothic art style, it might be worth watching once off of cable, but if you want something funny and artistically brilliant, go somewhere else.