I wanted to but couldn't!

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

A great movie with a lot of star actors and actresses. It's fun and fanciful while it explorers deeper issues and meanings about ourselves. Definitely worth the watch with kids or the whole family.You should just ignore most of the other reviews. It seems as if people do not have a mind of their own and just keep spouting off about how "Siskel & Ebert didn't like it, therefore I didn't like it." So I guess 2 people speak for the entire world of film now? What a boring world that would be. How about you people actually watch the film and evaluate on your own accord; or is that too difficult? If so, then you should not be allowed to pass judgment on anything. What is the point of a review system when all you do is follow one or 2 people on what they think? Might as well just stop people from posting and just allow 1 person to make all decisions.

I'm sure most film critics, professional and amateur, have read Roger Ebert's famous review of "North". " I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated it". I can definitely see where he's coming from with a lot of this film. But as much as I hated a lot of it , I feel that there are a couple sort of amusing moments in it, but there are MANY more bad ones than OK ones. That's why I've rated it a 3 instead of a 1. The parts I hated, I don't have enough room to name them all, but I'll name a few of the worst things in it. The entire Texas scene with North and Dan Aykroyd. Some very stupid irritating jokes such as "Buck ate more in a day than most people eats in a month, that's why he hated February". The Texas motor cart driving through the airport with an annoying horn. Dan Aykroyd's overly forced smiles after his dumb jokes. The dumb song with Dan at the end if it saying with his forced smile, " nother rib son"? The whole "trying to make North very fat" deal. The Hawaii and Alaska scenes have the exact same kind of problems. More stupid, annoying, unfunny jokes and puns made in Hawaii such as the "Mrs Ho" joke and "without B, C, D, and F in our alphabet, you're guaranteed to get straight As". The very worst and extremely inappropriate joke is the North billboard joke. More awful jokes in Alaska such as the "Eskimo pie" joke, the Alaskan Christmas joke, and the "your face will freeze that way" joke. The very worSt is the extremely heartless "ice flows" joke. Still more bad jokes; the plane landing in Alaska skidding joke. The beginning of the film with Jason Alexander and his pants factory joke. Very stupid. The Jerry Lewis joke in France. Jon Lovit's character, very annoying. I still did not name every stupid, terrible thing in this movie yet. Not enough room here. Now to list the few kind of amusing parts: Winchell's character as kid genius turned almost evil overlord as the film progresses .The Amish scene where North says humorously, "excuse me, I left my butter churner on the plane". Then him telling the pilot " floor it". The part in Bruce Willis's comedy club. And the dialogue between Winchell, Lovitz, and the hit-man about borscht and the hit-man's mistake about thinking North was dead. As you can see, there are many more bad than good parts in this film.

From the look and sound of it, "North" is a simple family-friendly movie about a young boy named North (Elijah Wood) who divorces himself from his parents to search for a new set because he feels they do not appreciate him. Underneath this facade is a film that like a shark hiding below the surface waiting to strike at unsuspecting victims. I can now see why the late Gene Siskel described this movie as "first class junk" and "trash".North is what can be described as a perfect child and has a perfect life, except in one area: his parents (Jason Alexander and Julia Louis- Dreyfus). North feels his parents do not appreciate him or pay him as much attention as they should. We are shown this by his parents not paying attention to him at the dinner table while they are in a heated argument. This one incident leads to him suffering in other areas of his life, including in academics, acting, and sports. North goes to his secret spot where he talks with a man in an Easter Bunny costume (Bruce Willis) and then decides that he will divorce himself from them. With the help of his lawyer Arthur Belt (Jon Lovitz), a Lionel Hutz-esque lawyer who unlike Hutz from "The Simpsons" is very unlikable and unfunny. The other person who helps him out is his friend Winchell (Matthew McCurley) who with Belt is planning on using North's story to have children take over.North wins the case and travels across the world to places like Texas, Alaska, China, France, and New York, with the stereotypical representations of the people going from seemingly innocent comedy to downright racist and hurtful. North meets an array of parents including Texans (Dan Aykroyd and Reba McEntire) to a nice New York couple the Nelsons (the late John Ritter and Faith Ford). Along the way, North realizes that what he really wants is to be with his real parents and goes to meet up with them.At the same time, a subplot goes on about the illogical and incomprehensible plan of getting children to take over and put Belt in office. The kids act like evil geniuses while the adults are bumbling buffoons who go along with this or are so frightened by the idea of their kids leaving them that they will bow to their every demand. Their plan, even in the film's universe, is illogical and wouldn't work. Going along with this plan are strangely a number of adults, including a hit man named Al (Robert Costanzo) who is tasked with taking North out so he does not return to his parents. Al lies in wait while North finally reunites with his parents and is shot, only to discover that the film sank to the level of having it's events all be a dream.Another large problem with the movie is the character of North. North wants to divorce himself from his parents because he says they are selfish and only care about themselves and leaves the other possible parents he meets for reasons like they are uncaring like with the set of parents in Alaska (Graham Greene and Kathy Bates) and so on. All of the problems that North finds with his parents and the other potential parents are all with him, too. He thinks the Alaskan parents are uncaring when he just dumped his real parents and he thinks his real parents are selfish while he is an egotistical little brat who thinks he is the greatest thing ever. He leaves his parents claiming their disaffection with him is ruining the rest of his life when it must not have been all bad if it just started taking a toll. Also, all we know is that he wants to leave them after they would not acknowledge him while they were in the middle of an argument at dinner. He is exactly what he hates. This is in no way the fault of Elijah Wood. Wood is a quite talented actor but no actor, no matter how good could pull this role off.The film is littered with talented actors like Bruce Willis, Elijah Wood, Dan Aykroyd, etc., but none of them manage to save the movie or put in a performance that makes the film bearable, and you can't blame them based on the material they're working with. The humor is unfunny and racist at times, the premise is hurtful and heartless, and the lesson at the end is one we could learn from watching the far better and far more entertaining film "The Wizard of Oz".This film is the three H's: hateful, heartless, and horrible. Gene Siskel described the movie as "first-class junk" and claimed it made him feel unclean. He was being too nice. "North" is a horrible movie that will make you feel horrible inside instead of heart-warmed like you were obviously supposed to be.

And the award for worst movie i've seen recently goes to... North. Talk about a misguided, morally deceased, un-funny, corny, painfully dumb, and over long kids comedy. I honestly enjoyed Kazaam, where Shaq plays a genie, more than this. Don't get me wrong, that movie is awful also. But with a premise as ridiculous and stupid as this, it's truly doomed from the start.The film revolves around a boy named North(young Elijah Wood) who feels neglected by his parents(Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss). So he hires a lawyer(Jon Lovitz) to disown him, and he goes around the world looking for new parents, which include a cowboy couple, Amish people, and Eskimos. Meanwhile, this annoying kid, really annoying, is practically taking over the planet, and trying to persuade other kids to disown their parents.Half of Hollywood is in this movie, and do you know why? No, seriously, I'm asking you. Did Bruce Willis, Julia Louis Dreyfuss, Jason Alexander, Jon Lovitz, Kathy Bates, John Ritter, Dan Akroyd, Reba Macintyre, or even it's unfortunate director, Rob Reiner ever read this script? It's awful. I hated it from the first ten minutes. Who wrote this book? It's garbage. It's as if the writer was seven. I've already told you what else is awful about it from the opening paragraph. But if I haven't said it, I will: THIS IS ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES EVER MADE. To quote Roger Ebert in his review for this film: "I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this film."F