Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: There are just so many things wrong with this movie.

To begin with, the first twenty minutes of the film could have been compressed into just five or maybe ten. The overall movie is (mercifully) short already, but this could have been made up for by giving a little more attention to the Mean Lion (how did the miss a reference to "The Wiz" on that one?) and working his subplot a little more closely into the main plot. In short, the script had the seed of a good idea, but needed quite a bit of reworking.

Second, it could have done without the crude humor. The original also had some that it could have done without, but at least there it was almost an afterthought -- here, flatulence and urination abound.

Third, the show is a little too self-aware. The original series had that well enough, as did the first movie, but here it's just way, way too much. The Brendan Fraser in-jokes were just a bit over the top (and why no mention of the "new Ursula"?). Other gags with the Narrator, especially a couple of interactions near the end, also exceed good sense.

Fourth, a bit more attention could have been given to the CGI work. In the first it was hard to tell that Shemp wasn't a real elephant (except by behavior, of course), but here the CGI stands out like a sore thumb. Ideally special effects should merely tell the story whether they're good or bad, and they at least do succeed on that count, so it's a relatively small problem, but it's still there.

All that said, Christopher Showerman's performance as George is decent enough. It lacks Brendan Fraser's charm, but Christopher only really fails in that specific comparison -- he even managed to give George a bit of personal depth, which should have been a major foul in a Jay Ward-inspired movie but wasn't here. Julie Benz as the new Ursula surprised me as being even better than Leslie Mann in the original.

Most other performances were pretty standard, not standing out in my mind as either good or bad.

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: ...may seem like an overstatement, but it is not.

What is so hard to comprehend is - why didn't they make more musical shorts like this? Wasn't the beauty of it totally apparent to everybody involved? I guess not. So many shorts were made for commercial reasons only, and with some luck there may be some artistic value in there. This is one exception - the only one? - where it seems they were the director had a vision and clearly could appreciate the music as art. Why didn't anybody ever think to shoot Lester or Charlie Parker on a live date? Crazy, man.

A pity there were no sequels. If you've seen anything of similar quality please share it!

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: this was a fabulous adaptation of Jane Eyre. the only problem i had with it was that i didn't like Zelah Clarke. i thought she was too old and made Jane seem much to timid. in the book Jane seemed like a much stronger character. i was really annoyed by this portrayal of her. the part where it's the morning after Rochester asks her to marry him and she runs up to him and hugs him always makes me laugh. i think they made a bad choice in casting her. but Dalton was absolutely wonderful as Rochester. he makes this version of Jane Eyre worth seeing. another thing that made this version not quite 100% was the quality of film. i know it was made in the eighties for TV. if it had been a feature film, and better quality, it would have been perfect. my main complaint however, is that Zelah Clarke was definitely too old.

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer:
Great fun. I went with 8 friends to a sneak preview viewing of this film. We came to see different one but after 10 minutes wondering what the heck we got ourselves into this time the jokes became funny and they stayed funny throughout the movie. In the first part you just keep asking yourself about this 'malinski' and 'bellini' stuff (there are many more examples of this lingo) and because they keep repeating the same jokes (with different twists) they get funnier and funnier. In search for this malinski all the main characters are introduced the first one even wackier than the next. Until half of the film was over we didn't even know the name of this movie because there were no opening credits and we went to this sneak viewing, but we sure had a good time. The house was loaded (appr. 250 people) and I think about half of them didn't like it and the other half loved the film. If you like weird comical movies with great dialogue you will love it. Apart from Clooney This movie deserves a lot better than the 5.6 IMDB rating it has at the time I write this, but when more ppl have seen it I am sure it will go up. 7.0 is reasonable I guess, I would give it an 8 out of 10. (10 out of 10 after a few beers)