Rated PG for some rude humor, mild language and brief smoking, 90 minutes
"Furry Vengeance" is like a skunk, it stinks
While I believe in the humane treatment of animals, I've never been mistaken for a PETA activist either. The dreadful new animals vs. humans comedy "Furry Vengeance" will give you a reason to hunt down not only the annoying animals in this movie, but you may want to hunt down the producers of the movie too. This woeful, mean-spirited family film is like an environmentally-conscious remake of "Home Alone," minus John Hughes, Macaulay Culkin and any laughs.
Brendan Fraser is Dan Sanders. Dan works for a big supposedly "green" corporation who wants to turn the forest into a sprawling development of new homes. Dan has relocated his smart teacher-wife Tammy (Brooke Shields) and his cynical teenage son Tyler (Matt Prokop) with him as he oversees the project. His scheming boss (Ken Jeong) and his nosy assistant (Angela Kinsey) have other bigger plans to mow down the forest and all the cute animals living there. The animals are smarter than you think, and have their own plans for Dan and his family and turn into a battle of epic proportions.
"Furry Vengeance" is a broad hokey comedic mess and an environmentally-conscious disaster of a movie, wasting a talented cast with its one-joke premise. Fraser is, as always, a dork but a game leading man, but his schtick and camera mugging can't even save this. The set-up is simple and obvious and you'll see it coming from a mile away. Skunks spray him more than once, a nasty racoon steals his clothes and a bird does its business on him.
As lovable as the animals seem, it's all rather nasty and mean-spirited in the vein of "Home Alone" with the animals in the Culkin role and Fraser in the Joe Pesci role. And then it tries to tie it all together with some clap trap about the animals protecting their own, which sends mixed signals to young ones; it's OK to seek revenge and do terrible things to people if you have a reason to.
Most of the cast is wasted in "Furry Vengeance," in particular two talented actresses in Shields, who's given very little to do and "The Office's" Kinsey, in a dumb sidekick role. The one brightspot in the cast is Jeong, who gets the most laughs, much as he did in "The Hangover" and "Role Models," even if his role is one big stereotype and he's terribly underused.
Script and direction? Minimal at best and given that the director is Roger Kimble, who helmed the equally awful "College Road Trip" a couple of years ago, that isn't a big surprise. The kiddoes may enjoy this for a bit, but even they may be hard-pressed to remember anything about it, except for the skunks. On that note, "Furry Vengeance" also stinks pretty bad, but it has nothing to do with the skunks. The worst comedy released in the last few months.
