Within the last year, I don’t remember exactly when, my friend Dan and I sat down to watch a Japanese film called ‘Getting Any’. Seemingly pitched as a sex comedy about a guy who can’t seem to get laid, what actually unfolds is a 110 minute film where the protagonist tries to rob a bank, joins the Yakuza, is briefly invisible, becomes a Cronenberg-referenced ‘fly-man’ and is foiled by a stadium sized pile dung. It is gleefully stupid for the sake of being gleefully stupid and is carried by its own ridiculous momentum- one-upping madness of the previous scene at every turn.

If a Hollywood executive tried to remake Getting Any?, I imagine it might turn out like Monkeybone. Monkeybone is stuck between a desire to be freewheeling, trippy and ridiculous whilst also trying to maintain some kind of coherent plot based around a love story between protagonist Stu Miley (Brendan Fraser) and his girlfriend Julie (Bridget Fonda). In trying to do both things, it achieves neither very well.

As I noted in the sneak-peek for this weeks post, this film is based (as I understand it VERY loosely) upon a graphic novel called Dark Town. The film follows cartoonist Stu who, on the evening he intends to propose to his girlfriend, is sent into a coma by a car crash. During this coma, Stu ends up in a place called ‘Downtown’, a Burton-esque land of horrifying creatures, Bull-headed barmen, Piano playing Elephants, Rose McGowan as a sexy cat, and Stu’s own cartoon creation ‘Monkeybone’ (voiced by John Tuturo). The character of Monkeybone (as well as much of Downtown (I think)) is animated by stop-motion and is impressive to look at. The simian is written, however, as a selfish, horny troublemaker who works against Stu. Downtown at first seems to be imaginary, but appears to be able to affect the real world. It is never really explained why or how this place exists; but then almost nothing in this film is given adequate explanation. Monkeybone escapes Downtown, takes control of Stu’s body and proceeds to cause mayhem and ruin his relationship. Stu escapes with the help of Death (Whoopi Goldberg, in a pleasing bit of stunt-casting,) and seizes control of things back from Monkeybone in a series of events too convoluted to recount. But let me make one thing very clear: this film is exceedingly odd.

Not only is there the trippy wonderland of Downtown, but even the sections of the story which occur in the real world are truly, sensationally odd. As Monkeybone within Stu’s body, Brendan Fraser puts in a performance of wild-eyed intensity rarely seen outside of Nicolas Cage, giving his absolute all to a physical and vocal performance of a script that just does not deserve it. He is equalled in the final 30 minutes of the film by Christopher Kattan who plays Stu-stuck-within-a-dead-gymnasts-body. The body’s neck is broken and is beginning to decompose and if there’s a better performance of a man’s consciousness-stuck-inside-another-man’s-corpse-who-has-to-run-about-despite-abroken-neck, then I haven’t seen it. Indeed any enjoyment that can be had from watching this film is found in these two performances, the imaginative visuals of Downtown and the few times that the jokes in the script lean into the mania of the film and its plotting. Regrettably these times are outnumbered by weak dick jokes, fart jokes and jokes that are LITERALLY ABOUT MONKEY SEX.

On the other end of things, trying to keep the serious end/ executive-mandated love story ticking over things are basically just left to Bridget Fonda, who gives it a damn good go. Her acting here is good, and she makes a paper-thin character sympathetic. But how the viewer is expected to ho from laughing at monkey fart jokes to weeping with a grieving widow is beyond me. None of it hangs together, and the film barrels to the plot like it’s got somewhere else it should be.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why this film fails. The plot is completely ludicrous and moves to fast to give itself any breathing room. The script is largely dated 90’s lowbrow humour. It’s willfully strange whilst trying to fit into a conventional Hollywood narrative structure. I think, basically, it tries to do too much with too flimsy a central core- no emotions, no motivations beyond ‘I love my girlfriend’- and too few good jokes. I wouldn’t recommend sitting down too watch this film, but I almost wish more people I new would, so that I could talk to someone about just what the hell I just watched.

Interestingly, Rose McGowan think this film could have been saved: https://www.indiewire.com/2016/08/rose-mcgowan-monkeybone-instagram-henry-selick-1201720974/ . If she’s right, and the keeping on of Director Henry Selick would have resulted in a film more on the level of Nightmare before Christmas, or Coraline rather than something clogged up with all the live-action/ romance plot bollocks that we got instead, this could all have been different. However, it would still be based around a phallicly-challenged simian puppet so…yeah.

Best Performance: Christopher Kattan as a reanimated corpse. Genuinely funny physical comedy.

Worst Offence: Making us watch Brendan Fraser get horny to Monkeys having sex on TV

Elevator Pitch: What if we took a curious, otherworldly indie comic and… wait for it… made it about a horny puppet monkey instead?

2 stars!:

-Tom