Herbie Goes Bananas

Easily the weakest of the series, this is a film the Herbie franchise could have done without. Having a child as the nominal lead in an essentially adult role is a surprisingly common motif in children's movies; surprisingly, because more often than not it fails to work and it certainly fails here. Eight-year old taxi drivers? I think not, not even in Mexico. Our Paco is more annoying than lovable and I found myself rooting for the villains instead.

Clearly the writers are to blame for the mess - the cast is actually quite good, e.g. you cannot ask for much better villains than John Vernon, Alex Rocco and Richard Jaeckel, but they were fighting a loosing battle against a rotten script.

The best asset of the film is Harvey Korman who shows the right spirit, and is given the freedom to act out his madcap humour. Neither his routines nor his character fit very well into the story, but the story is so weak one does not care.

The formerly jaunty little bug is dragged out for another run, this time a very feeble attempt at a franchise cash-in. It appears that the suits at Disney knew Herbie was due for the parts yard, and spent as little as possible to churn this out, hoping to make a quick buck off the few people who would see it on name recognition alone. Make the kids watch something else.

It was thought the Herbie phenomenon had finally run its course with Herbie Goes Bananas. It turned out only that the franchise just took a quarter century hiatus.

In this film Herbie has been given over to Stephen W. Burns and his mechanic Charles Martin Smith by previous owner whom we all know was Dean Jones. Of course he did it without telling nephew Burns or Smith about Herbie's capabilities. A bit of time with him and they really do believe that he can win the Grand Prix at Rio.

But before that the little bug gets involved with some counterfeiters played by John Vernon, Richard Jaeckel, and Alex Rocco, a little boy who calls him OCHO played by Joaquin Garay, and the pretentious captain of a cruise ship in Harvey Korman who has the best performance in the film. Burns gets himself involved in a shipboard romance with Elyssa Davalos who is accompanied by her chaperon aunt Cloris Leachman. Korman and Leachman get a little something going themselves though what she sees in him is beyond me. Maybe she just likes the uniform.

Herbie Goes Bananas has some nice location cinematography in the Panama Canal, Tijuana, and Guadalajara in Mexico. And it has two good scenes with Herbie walking the plank as per Captain Korman's orders and later on in a corrida facing a bull with Leachman and Korman inside. The rest of the time it moves at a snail's pace, odd for a Volkswagen that's supposed to win Grand Prix events.

By the way little Joaquin Garay calls him Ocho because he adds the five and three painted on Herbie's side and that's eight in Spanish. So why didn't he just call him Cincuenta Y Tres?

The only good joke in this movie is the inside one: when Cloris Leachman's character sends Herbie for help, Harvey Korman turns to her and says, "It's a car, lady, not Lassie!" Leachman was part of the cast of LASSIE in 1957-1958, playing the original Ruth Martin. One wonders if the joke was specifically inserted with her in mind.

Poor Herbie went through as many owners as Lassie, too. This one is particularly lackluster, although the child lead is cute. The two young men who now apparently own Herbie don't even have enough screen presence to overshadow a small boy. On the other hand, Leachman and Korman must have needed the bucks.

This third and last theatrical sequel to the classic Walt Disney Production The Love Bug (1969) brought the enormously successful franchise about a magical Volkswagen to a screeching halt. Herbie deserved a better send-off.

There's just no love left in the poor little disrespected cash-car. Filmed on the cheap in Mexico, this entry has none of the quality and charm of its original and trashes all that was good about the preceding sequels. Vincent McEveety, the weakest of Disney's three main directors during this period, was assigned the project after having done a fair job with Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, but makes no effort to elevate the project above the level of its poor script.

The frenetic, maudlin result is one of the worst Disney films. Talented comic performers Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman and Charles Martin Smith are wasted on unfunny material. Only the clever stunt and effects work save this mechanical destruction derby from oblivion.

The Love Bug was eventually revived for a brief TV series and made-for-TV movie, but Disney was flogging a dead V-Dub.