Review of Gooby (2009) by Kenny N — 27 Mar 2013

"Gooby" is meant for little children and they might enjoy it, but anyone else will get a real creepy feeling out of watching this movie. The story isn't particularly interesting and doesn't try to be original. The main character "Willy" has few/no friends and feels like an outcast when he moves into a new home/school. He meets a magical new friend (that he must hide from his parents for comedic purposes) and together they learn to overcome their fears, try new things and he learns how to make real friends. Sound familiar? You also get the generic bully that's inserted to show how "Willy" has trouble at school and a goofy authority figure that is trying to snap pictures of "Gooby" to make quick buck. If you were wondering, yes both parents are working jobs that keep them way too busy to pay any attention to their son (of course).

If the predictability was he only thing that was wrong with the movie, it would still be passable but the movie has many moments that end up feeling incredibly creepy. The first simply being "Gooby's" design. To make a creature sympathetic and cute-looking, you need to give it large eyes, not tiny beady ones that don't move and you need to make it seem vulnerable, not towering over it's child friend. It doesn't help that "Gooby" is given a few questionable moments and lines in the film that cement this into "unsettling" territory. At one point in the film the bear comments on how it was fun pretending to be "Willy's" father (right after getting him and his friends into an R-Rated movie) and there's a scene where "Gooby" drags "Willy" out of bed in the middle of the night to "show him something important" that just screams awkward.

Many plot points in the film don't make a lot of sense. For example, why is "Willy" being hidden from the parents? He's clearly real, eats a ridiculous amount of cookies and is so big that you might as well just tell them what's going on. Some elements are quickly and awkwardly introduced but then immediately forgotten, like "Mr. Nerdlinger", who appears in only a few scenes, is introduced as a new teacher (a few months after Willy moves into a new school, so we get two teacher introductions) and tries to get pictures of "Gooby", but only a few times and never really in a malicious way so he doesn't really feel like a villain. There are also some basic film making mistakes that make the movie look really amateur (a scene where we can hear thunder but can also catch a glimpse of the sunny weather through a window for example). The movie becomes tedious and pretty boring at times and it's so paint by numbers that there's just nothing here that really stands out except for the mistakes and missteps. "Gooby" isn't quality entertainment for adults and it meets the bare minimum for children so there's no reason to recommend it. (Dvd, March 22, 2013).