Monkeybone Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Monkeybone Blu-ray Movie Review

Sometimes "odd" is just too "odd."

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 1, 2012

You got fifteen minutes of fame and you're going to sleep right through it.

Imagine Who Framed Roger Rabbit? meets the dark and disturbed mind of Tim Burton. Imagine the creepiest Halloween and Horror movie characters meeting Saturday morning cartoons. Imagine the stuff of nightmares embodied in a "cute" little plush monkey. Imagine the blending of the real world and the dream world. Add all of that up, throw in a well-cast but unusually goofy Brendan Fraser, and the result is Monkeybone, a disastrous "kitchen sink" movie that's got it all and nothing at all, all at once. The movie is a collection of the weirdest of the weird and the darkest of the dark this side of Stephen King (who makes an "appearance" in the movie, even), but it's seemingly targeted at younger children (even though it's rated PG-13) who will probably have nightmares for a week if only for the visuals alone. Besides, the visuals absolutely dominate the experience; the story is too ridiculously far-flung and haphazardly assembled even for the dreamworld anything-goes premise, leaving Monkeybone the stuff of both real-world nightmares and cinematic travesties.

This didn't turn out like I had hoped.

Stu Miley (Brendan Fraser) is an artist with a darker side. For years, his artistic endeavors have favored a very bleak, very macabre, very bizarre styling that created a circular effect and were accompanied by some very nasty dreams. Enter his girlfriend Julie (Bridget Fonda), a sleep therapist who challenges Stu to draw with his other hand; maybe switching sides will produce something a bit more gentle. The result is a crude but cute character named "Monkeybone," and he's a runaway hit. A cartoon network has put in an order for half a dozen episodes, and Stu suddenly finds himself faced with approving all sorts of "Monkeybone" merchandise. Unfortunately, a terrible mishap with an inflatable monkey leaves Stu in a coma and on life support. His sister Kimmy (Megan Mullally) wants to pull the plug, but she agrees to give her brother three months to wake up. While in his coma, Stu travels to a dark world within his own mind, "Down Town." There, he finds all of the characters he's ever envisioned, including his latest sensation. As Stu's sister, girlfriend, and doctors discuss his future in the world of the living, he attempts to escape the dark and unusual world of his own making, a world from which Monkeybone wishes to be freed, too. Can the mere imaginings of a comatose cartoonist manifest in the real world? Can Stu find his way out of his purgatory and stop Monkeybone before he destroys the life Stu has built?

There are a couple of words that spring to mind during and following a screening of Monkeybone: "bizarre" and "unfunny." Some storytellers have made a pretty good living and captivated many a mind with the former. The latter, well, that's an almost guaranteed sign of disaster. Monkeybone wiggles in pretty much everything it can outside of thought-provoking drama; there's sexual innuendo, horror, mistaken identity, animation, stop-motion animation, "comedy," a little action, and so on and so forth, resulting in a movie that's as jumbled and misguided as it is humorless. Nothing gels; the movie simply feels like a short story expanded to include every sort of oddball character, environment, and event the filmmakers could possibly cram into the final product. "Bizarre" might even be too kind; this is truly far out stuff, the kind of material one pictures when considering the mind-altering effects of narcotics. The movie lacks cohesion, never quite makes perfect sense, and worst of all falls flat with every joke. The film produces countless more moments of slack-jawed wonderment at how awful it is than it does genuine laughs, and seeing that it appears to bill itself as a Comedy first, one cannot call it anything other than a failure.

Saving graces? There aren't many. The production design is strong, creating the creepy and macabre world of "Down Town" rather well. It does capture the feel of an imagination run absolutely rampant and delving into some pretty dark, disturbing, and unsettling images while still staying "pure" enough to cater to a younger target audience, i.e., it's grotesque, but not gory. Brendan Fraser is solid in the lead role. On one hand, he plays a rather mild-mannered cartoonist with an unusually vivid imagination that he expresses on paper rather than in deeds, inside of which he must exist while in a coma in the living world. He is also tasked with taking on the wild and unruly alter-ego of his make-believe monkey character within, again, the living world. The story certainly isn't without potential; the dichotomy of the alter ego infesting the body of its creator is interesting if not somewhat Jekyll & Hyde-like. The problem with Monkeybone is that it never knows what to do with all the "stuff" it crams into the end product.

Monkeybone Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Monkeybone's 1080p Blu-ray transfer won't dazzle any audience members, but it gets the job done. No flair, no eye-popping HD visuals; this is a workmanlike effort that features everything in order but nothing to any high level of excellence. Fine detail is fair at best. The texture of artist's canvas and clumpy paints as seen over the opening credits looks good enough, but the bulk of the movie features flat details. Faces in particular lack complexity, looking smooth and undefined. Colors are rather dim, particularly in the darkened "Down Town" world. They liven up a fair bit in the real world and in the last act in particular. Blacks never quite find that natural balance, either looking a bit too dark or a touch too pale. The animated open looks very nice, with smooth, crisp lines and bright colors. The image contains some pops and scratches. This is hardly a tip-top transfer; it's instead a midlevel effort that's about what one might expect of a catalogue transfer released with zero fanfare.

Monkeybone Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Monkeybone features a stable Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The presentation, like the video, won't wow any comers, but it handles the movie's sonic elements efficiently enough. Music never really opens up; it's fairly spaced, suitably clear, and plays with both a fair low end and some surround support, but it always feels somewhat hesitant in delivery. The low end throughout is a strength; bass is strong and rather tight, whether in music or sound effects, like a revving car engine. Minor ambience is handled nicely and with some surround support. Dialogue is generally clear, a touch shallow, perhaps, and reverberates nicely when necessary.

Monkeybone Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Monkeybone contains no supplements.

Monkeybone Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Despite good production values and a decent performance from Brendan Fraser, Monkeybone just falls on its face and never does gel into a cohesive or worthwhile picture. The jokes fall completely flat, and worse, the movie is too dark and macabre for its intended audience. It's too much of too many things and never finds its stride. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of Monkeybone delivers decent-to-good video and audio but includes no supplements. Skip it.