Review of Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life (2012) by Jesse H — 14 Jul 2012

First things first, I have never read the book that this film was based on, therefore my knowledge of this source material is limited. That said, I still feel that I can fairly judge "Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life".

Based on the popular book by Wendy Mass, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life is about a boy and his best friend who are trying to find four keys in order to open a mysterious box from his dead father that supposedly contains the meaning of life.

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life is a heavily cliched film, although depending of the mood your in you may call it sentimental or heart-warming. However, I can easily forgive the cliches in this film, although I'm not so sure if I can forgive the acting.

Half of the time the acting performances are good, but the other half of the time the acting is poor and reserved. To be clear though, I don't mean that some actors are good and some aren't, I mean that one actor may give a convincing performance in one scene, but then give a horrid performance five minutes later.

In fact, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life is generally a very uneven film in terms of quality. One scene could be very well done while the next scene makes the audience want to gag. I think that in general there were only one consistent performance.

Maxwell Beer, who played Jeremy Fink, gave a consistently poor performance, obnoxiously spewing the lines without any apparent understanding of the character. But, to be fair, I would be lying if I said that I never enjoyed this film.

There were scenes that worked well, and were very enjoyable, my problem is that this film isn't consistent in either way. It is also very hard to get over the acting performances, because at the parts where an acting performance is bad, it is really horrible.

For example, Ryan Simpkins, who played Lizzy, gave the number one most inconsistent performance of all the actors in this film. Sometimes, she was very convincing and funny, but at other moments her acting was very wooded and stale, but that could have just been a directing mistake rather then an acting mistake.

Never the less, her performance was inconsistent. Due to the inconsistency of the film, I was in conflict about whether I should give this film a 3 or a 3.5. The deciding factor in my final decision to rate it as a 3 came from the scene where they finally find the keys.

I was very disappointed that they found all of the keys so suddenly. I understand that it is probably from the book, but I still feel it is worthwhile to note how anticlimactic it is. However, despite all this films problems, I do recommend Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life as a fun, family friendly, film that will certainly entertain everyone at least somewhat.

The film can be funny when it wants to be, and I can't exactly call it terrible, it just wasn't consistent enough to be good. Therefore, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life is an inconsistent, yet somewhat entertaining film that should offer enough sentimental schlock to entertain both children, and child-like adults alike.

If you feel like watching a cliched film that makes you feel good, then you may like this film, but if you feel like watching compelling drama, then maybe you should choose to pass watching Fink's antics.

3/5 stars.