"Hoot"
Director: Will Shriner
Fien Print Rating (Out of 100): 48
In a Nutshell: Kids... They have to learn about civil disobedience somehow, I guess. And they have to learn about Jimmy Buffett somehow, I guess. And they have to learn about the important of protecting owls somehow, I guess. And they have to learn about the blandness of Luke Wilson somehow, I guess. But surely there's a better way that this dull vehicle that strips most of the humor that I'd have thought flowed naturally from Carl Hiaasen's writing. The film's message isn't bad -- corporate interests are destroying our wilderness areas and somebody needs to keep America pristine and beautiful, or at least parts of it. I was still left with a dazzling array of ethical and legal questions at the end, questions mostly raised because of how mechanical the film's plot -- new kid in town (Logan Lerman) fights evil pancake house with the help of two buddies in order to save a clan of burrowing owls -- was. Really, I got distracted and uninterested very easily. During my mind-wandering time, I concentrated mostly on the fact that Lerman, the film's leading man, was obviously going through puberty during production and the director was clueless how to cover that fact. There's a female character (played by Brie Larson) who's supposed to be much taller than our hero. And in some shots, she's obviously six or seven inches taller. And in others, they stand nose to nose. Sometimes their height relationship changes in the course of a single scene. It's hilarious. Equally hilarious is the strong suspicion that Lerman had to rerecord all of his dialogue in post-production because he voice changed. Yup. My mind was wandering.
A full review will be up on Zap2it.com on Friday, May 5.
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