It's a little slow, but not as bad as it could have been.
Eddie Murphy- Evan Danielson
Yara Shahidi- Olivia
Thomas Haden Church- John Whitefeather
Nicole Ari Parker- Trish
Ronny Cox- Evan's boss
Directed by Karey Kirkpatrick
Screenplay by Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson
Distributed by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Studios
Rated PG for some mild language and brief questionable behavior
Runtime- 107 minutes
Website: http://www.imaginethatmovie.com/
"Imagine That," the latest broad family comedy starring Eddie Murphy, is one of those broad family comedies that's likely to appeal more to adults than to children mostly because nothing particularly zany happens. Despite the importance of a child's imaginary world to the plot, there's nothing all that strange in the movie to pique the interest of young children looking for spectacle. Instead, the movie is more "real world" based and relies more on the ability of star Eddie Murphy to make you care about what's happening on screen. For the most part, Murphy succeeds (in fact, the entire cast succeeds). However, the movie is undermined by its pace and slow, slow direction.
Murphy is Evan Danielson, a workaholic financial executive father that can't find time for his daughter Olivia (Yara Shahidi). Evan's ex-wife Sherri (Nicole Ari Parker) tries to get Evan to spend more time and pay more attention to Olivia, but Evan always finds an excuse (usually work related) not to. As a result of this parental neglect, Olivia carries around a security blanket (which she calls her goo gaa) and has a series of imaginary friends that exist with the help of the goo gaa. When Olivia has to spend a week with her father, she introduces him to her imaginary friends. As usual, Evan fails to pay attention. But then Olivia's imaginary friends start analyzing the financial markets and Evan finds out that their analysis is quite astute. Suddenly, Evan and Olivia are an inseparable father-daughter team, and Evan starts to believe that the only way he can continue to succeed and beat his company rival John Whitefeather (Thomas Haden Church) is with the goo gaa. So Evan indulges in every wacky thing Olivia wants to engage in (funny dances in public, making absolutely disgusting pancakes, and generally talking to the wall every night and acting like there's something there to talk to besides a wall), hoping that the goo gaa's "power" is real and forever.
We, like Evan, never actually get to see Olivia's imaginary friends or the imaginary world that they exist in. It's an interesting choice to make because, with computer animation being what it is today (you know, relatively easy to produce), you'd think a movie with a kid with imaginary friends would at least show the audience, one time, those friends and that world. But that doesn't happen. Again it's an interesting choice. You could even call it brave since it's not what you'd expect. But, for whatever reason, the flick moves along at a snail's pace. It takes seemingly forever to establish Murphy's character, his broken relationship with Olivia, his problems with his ex-wife, and his problems with Thomas Haden Church's Whitefeather. It takes almost a half hour to get all of that established. Why couldn't it have been done in fifteen minutes? The movie doesn't start to move along until Evan and Olivia are together and "exploring" the imaginary goo gaa world. From then on the movie gets better and better and more watchable. That isn't to say that the movie, as a whole, in unwatchable. It isn't. I just think it doesn't "play" as well as it perhaps should.
Now, had this been an actual kids movie it would definitely need to move along faster and involve more "wacky" stuff. There would need to be more music, more dancing, more wacky dialogue from Murphy and Shahidi. The scene at the kid's birthday party would have to be a major kids action movie set piece. But all of these scenes are done in a very deliberate fashion that will end up appealing more to adults than to children.
Murphy is pretty dang decent as Evan. He manages to balance the stern workaholic aspects of the Evan character and the goofy stuff he ends up doing to appeal to and appease Olivia without once looking like an idiot (there's a scene where Murphy steps in a big pile of crap. It's a gross scene, sure, but it never comes off as a lame poop joke. There's a pay off). Murphy also holds the movie together through the slow scenes with both ability and charisma. He's still fun to watch. Yara Shahadi is great as Olivia. Shahadi, like Murphy, manages to balance her performance between the cute kid imaginary friends hooey and the emotional stuff, which is amazing since she's so young. She's also never annoying, which is a major plus when it comes to child actors, especially young child actors. And Thomas Haden Church is hilarious as John Whitefeather, the pseudo Native American financial analyst that has everyone suckered into believing he's a real Native American. When he isn't spouting off lame, obviously fake Native American parables he's telling people "It ain't no thing," which just annoys Murphy's Evan. Church’s best scene, though, is towards the end and involves forcing someone close to him to drink lots and lots of Red Bull.
Now, for movie nerds like me it was neat to witness the various cameos from well known and maybe not so well known to the general public actors, like Richard Schiff (Toby from "The West Wing"), Martin Sheen as the company big boss, Bruce McGill (D-Day!) as a rich, western (as in country western) businessman, Stephen Root (Milton and Bill Dauterive) as a rich businessman with a flighty sense of loyalty, Carmelo Anthony (I think that was him there in a montage in the middle of the movie), and, this is the big one, Ronny Cox (Bogomil! Yes, Bogomil!), as Murphy's boss. The Cox cameo (well, it's more of a supporting part, but I think it's better to lump him in with all of the others. I mean, come on, it's Ronny Cox. It's goddamn Bogomil. If John "Taggart" Ashton showed up here, or Judge "Billy Rosewood" Reinhold, though, this flick would be on the short list for coolest movie ever made).
"Imagine That" isn't a great movie, but it's not bad, either. It probably could have been a lot worse. Eddie Murphy probably won't win any awards for his performance here, but if he decided not to go back to movies like "Beverly Hills Cop" or "Coming to America" and just churned out movie after movie like "Imagine That," that'd be okay. He's watchable. I just don't understand why this movie isn't faster, why it isn't quicker, why it doesn't play more. It seems like a missed opportunity.
"Imagine That" is worth a look. Again, it's not great, but it's not bad, either.
So what do we have here? Gratuitous Eddie Murphy, gratuitous Eddie Murphy screaming about a blanket, gratuitous opening narration by a child, gratuitous Ronny Cox (Bogomil!), gratuitous Thomas Haden Church, gratuitous Thomas Haden Church acting like an Indian, a whiny kid with a security blanket, screaming, Eddie Murphy working out in a gym, goofy homophobia, spoiled milk, gratuitous bowl of half and half, gratuitous "Blue's Clues," gratuitous fake Indian bullhooey, important meeting note destruction, gratuitous Indian table pounding meeting, gratuitous Stephen Root, gratuitous Eddie Murphy spinning around in a circle with a blanket over his face, Eddie Murphy singing a song several times in different registers, gratuitous Bruce McGill (D-Day!), gratuitous Eddie Murphy stepping in a pile of cow poop, Eddie Murphy dancing like a fool in the middle of the street, potential cameo by Carmelo Anthony, gratuitous Richard Schiff, making stuff with Legos, the nastiest pancakes in movie history, playing restaurant, a goofy picture computer program, gratuitous Beatles songs, gratuitous Martin Sheen, Eddie Murphy infiltrating a kids party, multiple plastic balls to the head, gratuitous Red Bull hooey, multiple yard obstacles in the dark, Eddie Murphy on a trampoline, a funny confrontation, the big final meeting, and the big familial revelation.
Best lines: "Look, I'm just going to put this as gently as possible. You're a complete idiot," "I do not want to sleep in there," "How many days until I go back home?," "What are you, a button maniac? Stop it," "The Dream Sparrow?," "I didn't realize you guys were so tight," "Go away, Todd, go very far away," "Hey, sometimes the best spear is the one you don't throw. Ain't nothing but a thing," "I heard you said poop," "Thank you for the popcorn balls!," "Nice chatting with you, Johnny," "Icky, icky, icky, gross, yucky," "I am going to have the venison," "So, who wants pancakes for dinner?," "Daddy, you're just doing what I did to you," "I can get a blanket, I can, and I'm going to get one," "When a grown man says 'goo gaa' it's time to go," "I'm a kid, I don't drink coffee," "You're out of the tribe because you're blind to the poetry of smoke," "Luck is for losers," "Wow. I've never seen anything like that before," "Are you blaming your child?," and "Nice outfit."
The 411: "Imagine That" is an okay family comedy that's probably going to appeal more to adults than to children simply because it isn't all that zany. Despite the whole "imaginary world" thing that's an important part of the plot, that world is never realized on screen. Eddie Murphy does most of the heavy lifting, carrying the movie from start to finish. If only the movie moved faster. It just doesn't seem to play up to its potential.
