One thing that we forget as adults, is to have a little fun with the old movies we loved. Maybe this is not the case for everyone, and maybe this is not even the case with you specifically, but there are a lot of movies that we loved as kids and just never revisit. Well, recently my wife wanted me to get a few movies on netflix that weren’t exactly crime noir films, hardcore horror, or gore-filled romps. So I went overboard and got a whole set of kids movies, and this week, despite being sick still managed to watch. I was surprised, because I still remember when I was a kid watching these movies, and although the plots aren’t exactly the most educated, they are still somewhat better than todays crop of children’s movies. Don’t believe me? Here we go, it is time for A Carnival
of Kids Movies!

The Gameplan on dvd is the catalyst for my recent interest in children’s film. The Gameplan stars The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) as a star quarterback who wakes up one day to find his daughter at his door step. He now has to go through the whole fish out of water storyline, only to find out that he has been too self absorbed in the past to realize that he really needs his daughter around. This all happens in a matter of 90 minutes, we get the triumphant ending where he gets full custody, and the whole missing child thing is ignored for a good ¾ of the film. What a train wreck! Do kids like this movie? I’m not sure if I could have bought this when I was a child, nor could I see my sister liking this one while she was growing up. (My sister is 9 years younger, so I had to sit through a TON of kids movies growing up) The Gameplan is an example of bad Disney children’s movies. I don’t get it, even if I threw my brain away.

Here’s a trailer for The Game Plan now on dvd:

The recent string of children’s movies suck; that includes Wall-E, which is a load of crap in my opinion, and well, that doesn’t weigh a whole lot these days.

Here’s a couple of films that I revisited to see if I grew up watching crap too:

The Mighty Ducks on dvd was not something that I pictured when I was a kid. I watched the crap out of The Mighty Ducks on vhs and eventually the tape broke. The Mighty Ducks features a big shot lying lawyer played by Emilio Estevez, who gets in trouble for drinking and driving. His punishment is not jail time, or anything along those lines, it is to coach a Pee-Wee hockey team. The team is comprised of misfits and the team sucks, but Gordon Bombay, former Pee-Wee hockey star is going to shake things up!

The logic in this film is right out of the window. First and foremost, Gordon (Estevez) drives in this film. Yet he’s had a TON of DUI’s and his latest one doesn’t seem to change things. He then gets involved with one of the kid’s moms and she doesn’t mind that he’s a drunk, or has had a HUGE record of faults.

Sure we can talk this one away, but come on, using adult logic on this film will only tank the whole films credibility.

So instead, I started thinking about why I loved this film as a kid. I loved this movie because it showcased second chances, and hockey, as well as rollerblading. Before I started skateboarding, I played roller hockey for a while, and I enjoyed the activity. This movie really made me want to have a group of friends that all liked roller hockey, and wanted to live the movie. It never happened at all. In fact, I’m a loner to this day, and have no friends in person. I know it’s easy to tell me that I have friends, but as far as I can tell, I sit in a cube and I see no one outside of work. So that makes me a loner, a rebel. (Nice get up kids reference, that also references Pee Wee Herman)

The Mighty Ducks series were wildly popular, but this first series really was cool. It even had a young Pacey from Dawson’s Creek. Seriously, this film holds up on a kid level, but not on an adult level, and even though I have fond memories of this film, I don’t know if I can still enjoy it without seeing so many flaws. Sure, I can enjoy it, but it’s a very low form of entertainment for me, and maybe I’ve just gotten too smart for my own good. I don’t know, it’s still somewhat interesting to me. I just threw my whole statements out the window, so maybe just take this whole thing with a grain of salt.

Even now, I’ll still watch this movie, and maybe if one day I have kids, they’ll like it too.

So now that we’ve looked at a movie that was somewhat interesting, what if we checked out something completely stupid?

Good Burger fills that stupidity clause with full effect. On a very basic level the plot surrounds two different burger companies and traditions. One burger company, Good Burger makes classic burgers, while the new burger company in town has all the bells and whistles of interesting things but serves burgers that are injected with hormones and highly processed. The movie has two friends that are complete opposites, and try to take down the rival company.

In the process, we meet one smart, streetwise Keenan Thompson, and one stupid and stupid Kel Mitchell. This movie is brainless, but man did I loved it when I was a kid. The vhs tape was orange! As a kid, burger propaganda was just too cool, and I didn’t see it as that. I just saw it as a funny romp through suburbia with a backdrop of burgers! Woooo!

As an adult, this movie sucks.

This movie is completely idiotic. Sinbad and his acting can’t even help it. The Burger Mobile can’t help it, and not even Carmen Electra helps this piece of crap movie out. However, one might make the case that this film is an example of an Economics lesson waiting to happen. You see, there are two burger companies. One is modern and one is old school. The old school one wins in the end, and the modern one ends up proving to be a horrible way to eat burgers. In the end, the classic franchise making classic burgers and fries wins the glory and the customers!

Here’s a trailer for the Nickelodeon Classic, Good Burger:

So there we go, we have made it through a carnival of kids movies. Obviously, this is not a complete overview of all children movies, but it’s a brief glimpse into my childhood and quite possibly, some of yours.