Furry Vengeance

... and if you expect anything else than Brendon Fraser behaving goofily , cute little animals doing things that are impossible outside of a Warner Brothers Road Runner cartoon, and a generous helping of gross-out jokes that seem to have no lasting consequences, then you are in the wrong place.

I feel I need to defend this film. A 3.8 current rating? Seriously? And a 23 Metascore rating? And yet "Funny Games" (1997) about home invaders torturing members of a household gets a 7.6 rating and a 69 Metascore? And a Criterion release? And, no, I can't think of any circumstances under which I would want to be "challenged" by such material.

I have had a rough week. I had three refrigerators delivered to my house before I finally got one that worked, after one that was only two years old died. And my garbage disposal is broken and leaking. This was just the film to cheer me up. Because of all the gross-out jokes I don't think I would want kids to see this, and that must have hurt box office because I think kids might have been part of the target audience, but it hit the spot for this adult.

Citizen Kane it isn't, but if you just want to laugh and put your brain on hold I don't think another film could do a better job.

OK, so I had free tickets to watch Furry Vengeance and despite all the negative reviews, I decided to give it a chance. You see, I've enjoyed my share of cinematic disasters in the past (The Adventures of Pluto Nash, anyone?) and so I thought: how bad can it be? So yeah, the story of animals getting revenge on a real estate agent that's tearing down their forest won't exactly win any Oscars or be forever cherished as a modern classic. However, Furry Vengeance was - in its own dumb way - fluffy (and dare I say furry) fun. Sure, it was stupid and shallow - but I found myself smiling and even releasing an occasional laugh, so as a whole it wasn't as bad as some people made it up to be.

To sum things up - if you walk into the film expecting nothing but Brendan Fraser's crazy hijinks, you'll get exactly what you paid for.

I gave it 5 stars out of 10.

I have to admit that I thought this movie was incredibly stupid, but my kids loved it, and afterall, it was made for them, not for me. They laughed up a storm and gave it 10/10 when I asked them (my rating of 6 is an average of their score and mine!)

As other reviewers have written, you have to give the cast credit for giving it their all, even if it was in pursuit of a rather questionable goal. We watched the gag reel and Making Of video on the DVD, and they clearly had a ball making this movie. I also give them credit for shoehorning in a great message about protecting forests - it's never bad for kids to hear that.

If you're expecting a deep, meaningful movie experience, this ain't it, but if you and your kids want some cheap laughs, this is a safe bet.

I won't give away any plot, but to be honest if you've seen the trails you've probably seen the only good bits of the movie and the rest is watchable if nothing's better on.

I initially gave this movie 4/10, but as I wrote this downgraded to 3. I'd say this movie would be ideal for anyone between the ages of 5 and 9. I'd not buy it on DVD except from the bargain bucket, or watch for free on regular TV. I regret having spent good money to see it at the cinema.

We saw this at the cinema as a family; we are middle-aged parents with a son, 6, and a daughter, 4.

We adults thought it was slow to get started but managed to pick up a little bit of pace. It was quite predictable with the same jokes repeated, and there were no plot twists at all to give it any interest. The bored teenager role was acted with little imagination, the girlfriend just about imagining a soupçon of character. Brendan Fraser managed to make a reasonable deal of a weak plot, and his wife Brooke Shields had a few moments of believable acting as a wife.

The script writer lacked imagination, the budget was probably quite low too, there were times the poor CGI punctured the suspension of disbelief (I imagine this would not be one to enjoy on blu-ray unless they fix things up in the transfer). One novelty was that the animals didn't speak, instead thought bubbles appeared with pictures. If I was being cynical I'd say this was as much a way to avoid the costs of voice character actors and dubbing into foreign languages as to give the movie a twist.

This could easily have been an episode of a any standard sitcom about a family relocating to the country, and could have been edited down to 45 minutes... and then perhaps the reuse of jokes might not be so bad, but they quickly became stale.

So, the movie failed from an adult perspective. Did it succeed to keep the kids entertained? Our 6 year old enjoyed it, he's at that age where adults being stupid, animals being smart, and lots of mess and stink are funny. He's able to follow quite complex dialogue so was able to grasp the point of the movie.

Our 4 year old found it hard going, as it was slow to start, there was too much dialogue with too little action, she enjoyed the slapstick humour, but was frequently restless - she'll re-watch Finding Nemo with more attention and she's seen that 10+ times!.

I never rate movies on technical aspects but on how much I have enjoyed watching them. I happen to really like Brendan Fraser and think he can be really, really funny. He has also done very well in the more serious roles such as School Ties and Mrs, Winterbourne. I know this is not technically a wonderful movie. However, Brendan is hysterical as the poor project developer against whom the animals have ganged up, invading home, car and his mind! Brooke Shields does a great job as the tolerant wife. Award winner? Never. Fun romp? Absolutely. I gave it a 7.