North
NORTH (12)
D: Rob Reiner
Rank/Columbia/Castle Rock (Rob Reiner & Alan
Zweibel)
US 1994
88 mins
Comedy/Adventure
W: Alan Zweibel & Andrew Scheinman [based on the
novel by Alan Zweibel]
DP: Adam Greenberg
Ed: Robert Leighton
Mus: Marc Shaiman
Elijah Wood (North), Bruce Willis (Easter Bunny /
various benevolent advisors), Jon Lovitz (Arthur Belt), Matthew McCurley (Winchell), Alan Arkin (Judge Buckle), Jason Alexander (North's Father), Julia-Louis Dreyfus (North's
Mother)
A woefully unfunny flop from Rob Reiner in which an
odious child progidy named North (Elijah Wood) gets fed up with his parents and travels around the world to find another mum & dad.
What follows is a journey into a land populated with
insulting stereotypical characters (Texans, Eskimos, Amish) while North is followed by a guardian angel (in the form of Bruce Willis) and finally realises that his natural parents are his
best bet.
As a children's film, the jokes are inappropriate and
unfunny. Even as a parody of the overly-PC fare released around the same time, the jokes fall way short of any sort of mark.
Personally, I see this movie as an excuse for the cast
& crew to travel around the world on holiday at the studio's expense.
2/10
