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| Or: Herbie - A Girl's Best Friend |
We rejoin the plucky little Bug as he is once again hauled off to a scrapyard after his racing career peters out (does no one ever think to donate him to an auto museum?). He’s soon rescued when purchased by Ray Peyton (Michael Keaton) as a college graduation gift for his daughter, former street-racer Maggie (Lindsay Lohan.) The youngest from a NASCAR family, Maggie harbors a stifled desire to return to the world of auto racing, but has been held back by her widower father following an accident years prior. Her older brother, Ray Jr. (Breckin Meyer,) is instead pushed to qualify for races despite the fact that he’s not very good. Having gained a new lease on life, Herbie soon gets up to his old tricks; he plays matchmaker for Maggie and her goofy friend, Kevin (Justin Long, whose character naturally happens to be a mechanic,) and shows off his skills as a sprightly racing car - drawing the jealous ire of an egotistical racer named Trip Murphy (played with contained bitterness by Matt Dillon.)
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| You can have the keys to Herbie, but not the Batmobile. |
Lohan, in her fifth and so far final role for Disney (and a year after her breakthrough performance in 2004’s Mean Girls,) puts in a warm and believable (if ever-so-slightly disconnected) performance. Given her reported problems during filming (she was at one point hospitalized with a kidney infection, reportedly brought on by work-induced stress) it’s commendable that she didn’t completely “phone-in” her performance. Remember, this was still a few years before “La Lohan” became the infamous shoplifting, court-skipping, drugged-out nightclub co-owner we all know and love today. Watching the talented young actress acting alongside a cuddly living car, knowing that she would soon crash and burn so rapidly, is honestly a little bittersweet.
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| Lindsay and her hangover shades... |
The rest of the cast put in decent performances - especially considering that only the bare minimum of acting effort is required in a film like this. Michael Keaton, a few years from his late-career comeback, fills the role of “concerned-but-proud” father reliably, his frequent bouts of frustration hinting at a deeper well of emotion than scripted. Justin Long (who, despite continuously appearing in film and television since 1999, seems to simply exist in the mid-2000s) comes off very well as the sidekick-turned-love interest. Long thankfully makes the role his own, not trying to be the comic relief and finally breaking the “Hackett/Knotts” curse. Matt Dillon, as noted above, underplays his role as a vain NASCAR driver until late in the film, thankfully forgoing the crazed villainy of such previous “Herbie” foes as Keenan Wynn and John Hannah. Also on hand is Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Cheryl Hines playing Sally, one of Team Peyton’s few remaining sponsors. Had this film not been aimed at a teenage audience, Herbie would’ve surely played cupid between Hines’ and Keaton’s characters. And Breckin Meyer is here, too … being Breckin Meyer.
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| Of course I'm a racer - I was in Rat Race! |
Unlike the previous “Herbie” films (but like many contemporary comedies,) Herbie: Fully Loaded is … well, fully loaded with wall-to-wall music. The licensed music includes a number of well-known FM-radio staples, including Van Halen’s"Jump"(played as Herbie springs into action to save Maggie during a demolition derby) and Lionel Richie’s “Hello” (when Herbie falls for a yellow “new” VW Beetle - I guess Giselle was just a fling after all.) A number of Beach Boys songs (and other “beach music” sound-alikes) are also utilized for action on and off the race track, befitting the film’s Southern California setting and bright, sunny visuals. There are also a number of unfortunate covers featuring then-current “Disney Channel” artists, including Aly & AJ butchering Katrina and the Waves’ "Walking on Sunshine." By the way, I would encourage anyone watching this movie to switch off once the end credits start rolling, as Lindsay Lohan’s song “First” pops up to contaminate your speakers. The film’s score, composed by former DEVO member Mark Mothersbaugh, is nothing to write home about. One of Mothersbaugh’s weaker efforts (having composed music for dozens of movies and TV productions since the mid-1980s, including Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, The Royal Tenenbaums and Thor: Ragnarok,) the broadly-comic score brings to mind Bruce Broughton’s so-so work on Disney’s Honey, I Blew Up the Kid from a decade earlier. On the other hand, having George Bruns’ venerable “Herbie Theme” blast out of the soundtrack during the typical “Herbie takes new owner for a wild ride” sequence is a lovely touch.
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| Slug Bug! |
Speaking of Herbie, the little Bug is more animated than ever thanks to a bevy of new special effects - both practical and computer-generated. Beyond his usual oil-squirting, two-wheel driving antics (as well as his signature wheelie,) Herbie pulls off several more acrobatic and downright gravity-defying stunts - including driving up on a fence to pass other drivers. While Herbie’s origins as the bi-product of a crazy science experiment are (thankfully) ignored here, we do get a bit more insight into how Herbie bonds with his human drivers. We get to see Herbie's point-of-view thanks to a number of “fisheye lens” shots, and witness a sequence in which a “spark” is shown to travel through his engine as Maggie takes the wheel. Herbie is therefore able to perform a "rail-riding" skateboard stunt during their initial street-race together - a move that Maggie later admits she’d “wished” she could do at that moment. Herbie also seems to be acting a lot more like he did back in the original film, becoming emotionally distraught when he is ignored or shunned for a newer car. Just as Jim Douglas had to rescue Herbie from attempted suicide, Maggie must convince Herbie that she really does believe in him after he willingly allows himself to be mangled in a demolition derby.
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| Runnin' with the devil... |
While some have balked over Herbie’s new “extreme” abilities in Fully Loaded, there’s been a tradition in these films to have Herbie perform new and increasingly over-the-top stunts in each successive sequel. Honestly, is Herbie hopping onto a guardrail any more unbelievable than him driving on the ceiling in Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, or sliding up the suspension cables of the Golden Gate Bridge in Herbie Rides Again? Besides, we’re talking about a movie starring a living car - so maybe one should think twice before picking these particular nits?
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| Hobo Herbie rides the rails... |
I will admit, however, that there was one moment in this film when I felt the filmmakers had taken things a step too far. At one point, after Trip tries to bribe Maggie into taking a ride in his souped-up stock car, Herbie makes a mocking “crazy face” behind his back. And oh my God! Why in the hell did they make Herbie pull such a bizarre, cartoonish, badly CG-rendered expression!? Surely one of his good ol’ “hood raspberries” would’ve elicited a laugh from the kids in the audience. Why go through the trouble of making such a lousy new effect? While Herbie’s always been acrobatic, he’s never before (or at any point later in this film) been able to change the molecular structure of his own body! He’s made of metal like any other car, not rubber! This is Herbie the Love Bug, not Bennie the fucking cab! Despite liking this film overall, this one instance nearly took me out of the whole thing.
Perhaps it’s the divisive nature of Herbie: Fully Loaded that has lead to it’s low-standing in fan circles. While the film was a modest success at the box office (making back nearly triple it’s budget,) the film was critically pummeled, receiving a 40% on review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes - a mere 1% improvement on the score for Herbie Goes Bananas. Hell, in spite of it’s decent box office, the film’s “audience approval” index tallies an even worse 38% (again, just one point higher than the audience score for Bananas.) Frankly, I don’t see what everyone’s complaining about. While not nearly as good a film as the 1968 original, I was pleasantly surprised by Herbie: Fully Loaded. And it should go without saying that it’s by far an improvement over it’s sick-inducingly awful 1980 predecessor. Like the better films of the “Herbie” franchise, this movie kept the focus on the racing (in this case NASCAR) and the emotional arc of both Herbie and his human friends.
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| Did I ever tell you how close I was to winning Best Actor for Birdman? |
But the fact of the matter is that by 2005 the majority of critics and audiences weren’t coming into this movie as the next in a series of films, but as a stand-alone movie. And as such, Herbie: Fully Loaded isn’t great. The plot is a predictable mish-mash of underdog sports movie (and teen movie) clichés, the characters are thinly-drawn, and director Angela Robinson (fresh off debut feature D.E.B.S.) seems to have taken the assignment simply for the paycheck. Additionally, the fact that the film was made and marketed specifically as a kid/teen movie - a departure from the older films’ more adult-oriented humor - probably put a lot of folks off. The sad fact is that by 2005, when Disney produced what they liked to call “family entertainment,” what they actually meant was “a movie for kids,” rather than something the entire family could honestly enjoy. More likely the whole family would actually be spending their movie-going money going to see PG-13 rated fare, such as the studio’s own Pirates of the Caribbean films. Or something made by Pixar.
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| Jeepers creepers - why the Long face? |
It could also be the case that because Lohan, who was the main focus of the film’s marketing more so then her vehicular co-star, has since become a poster-child for privileged young-Hollywood excess, the movie’s ongoing reputation has suffered as a result.
Who knows? Perhaps the fact that I’ve mostly been watching Herbie movies and TV productions for over a month now has clouded my judgment. Just seeing the old Bug appear in a glossy new-ish film was, for me, a nice little reward for sitting through a few of his more disappointing adventures. Plus, as I’d said back in my first Love Bug post, Herbie’s original success was mostly a convergence of the right material being released at the right time, regardless of the film’s high quality. The fact is that, on the whole, popular entertainment has gotten steadily more sophisticated as time’s moved on (“reality TV” notwithstanding.) You couldn’t put out high-concept productions like Gilligan’s Island or (to use a more spot-on example) My Mother The Car and expect to have a long-running success in this day and age. A story focused around a sentient machine is now only acceptable as science-fiction. To put out a comedy based on such a concept to an adult audience would make you the laughing-stock of Hollywood - unless you were doing so ironically, or dressing up such a production with gross-out humor. One could imagine, for example, Family Guy and Ted creator Seth MacFarlane producing such a film - and probably voicing said car himself. For better or worse, any new movie about a living Volkswagen could really only be released as youth entertainment.
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| Herbie: Fully Sponsored... |
As we wrap up our look at all of Herbie's adventures, we have to wonder where this leaves him? We’re currently a couple years off matching the longest gap between “Herbie” productions, which was the 15-year gap between the 1982 TV series and the “TV Movie” in ‘97. Rumors hit the internet last year that Disney was considering rebooting the franchise as a television show on their tween-oriented DisneyXD channel, and would feature either a young boy or girl as the main protagonist. Unfortunately said rumors also indicated that the "new Herbie" could be a secret government-built super-car that talks, rather than a mystical child of the love generation. So perhaps it would be best if this particular project never sees the light of day. Herbie’s not supposed to be KITT, after all.
It’s hard to imagine that Disney wouldn’t try, at some point in the future, to bring back their lovable little car in some form. Against all odds, Herbie has remained firmly entrenched as one of filmdom’s most unlikely iconic characters. Whether Disney chooses to reboot, relaunch or otherwise revisit Herbie, I don’t doubt that we will see the Love Bug ride again one day.
