Saturday, July 15, 2006

MOVIE REVIEW: Little Man

Yesterday I saw a film from the makers of I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and Scary Movie, The Wayans Brother's, Little Man. These are also the same guys who did that incredibly bad movie a year ago called White Chicks (albeit the film did fairly well). So I went into Little Man with much skepticism and discovered that my intuition was right on almost all levels-- to put it plainly this film sucked.

The film follows, of course, Little Man Calvin with Marlon Wayan's face plastered on a little person's body, which raises the question why not actually get a little person to play this role, why waste all the money on CGI? Anyway they play up the fact that Calvin is a tiny person and that he is also a fierce criminal who works out, he has serious daddy issues and he has a bit of a Napoleon complex. So he gets out of jail accompanied by his idiot partner Percy, (Tracy Morgan) who should be a lot funnier because of his former SNLer status, but unfortunately he falls prey to the stupid sidekick shenanigans. So these two knuckleheads steal a diamond and allow a young married couple, Darryl and Vanessa(Shawn Wayans and Kerry Washington) to take the diamond home unknowingly. So as Calvin is plotting his scheme on how to get the diamond back he overhears Darryl's over the top almost psychotic rant about how much he wants children, and decides to dress himself as a baby at their front doorstep. There are a few funny moments as Calvin impersonates an infant with the mind and body of a thirty year old, but the jokes get old and the fact that it takes the whole movie for anyone to realize he's not a baby makes them seem even more idiotic than ever. The CGI was impressive though, I only hope they didn't spend too much money on it since I can't imagine the box office numbers for this movie to be very big. I was also disappointed with the supporting cast; they had the very funny John Witherspoon as Pops from the movie Friday and I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, and did not allow him enough screen time to really get going. Also there was a really great moment at the beginning with David Allen Grier, who unfortunately is not in the rest of the movie. Why the hell was Chazz Palminteri in this movie, he's so much better than this. He plays another Italian esque Mafioso, who really isn't very funny. So I ask the question again, why was he in this movie? Who knows? Anyway, if you like overused jokes, abused in a not-so clever way, then you will love this movie, if not then I suggest everyone let the Wayans brothers know that they need to go back to the drawing board and start making good comedies again, cause I know and you know --they can do better.

Grade: 2 Buckets

No comments: