Review of Phantom of the Megaplex (2000) by Jason F — 16 Oct 2007

This movie is just to fun. It reminded me of my days working at a movie theatre. Every last detail of movie theatre life was covered, right down to things that can possibly go wrong. Frankly, if I'm not mistaken this movie was shot at a theatre that wasn't all that far from my house in Toronto.

Although this is a Disney film it is better then a lot of their made for TV movies. Good acting and a good script. If anything young Jacob Smith steals the show (you might recognize him as the skateboarding Baker child from Cheaper by the Dozen) as his childhood innocence into the mystery surrounding the weird events at the theatre gives a fresh and unique outlook to the film.

Although I'm not big on Mickey Rooney, his character reminded me so much of a guy I used to work with (Cumberland crew, I'm talking about Lou) I couldn't help but laugh at how close the resemblence was. It was bang on right down to harrassing movie patrons.

What is unfortunate that although the movie was revolving around Taylor Handley, his character gets lost in the background. Although he does have substantial character development and comes into his own, he's definetly someone I would have wanted working with me in my theatre days.

This film also hits close to home. As anyone who has worked at my old haunt (pun intended) Silvercity Richmond Hill would tell you we had our own problem with a ghost. Yep I even did the research and found out someone was murdered on the land about 250 years ago. To this day I don't think one usher wants to clean cinema 10 by themselves.

This film is definetly worth the time. I recommend seeing it if you want to watch something on a lazy afternoon, or if you have kids over. Everything was true to the theatre industry, except you CANNOT rewind a movie after it has started -- well you could but it would take a few hours.