Zoom...splat!
Well, I took my two older sons to see Zoom last night.
I can see why it was so universally panned at Rotten Tomatoes. On the plus side, both of the kids loved it. They’re into the whole superheroes thing—saw all 3 X-Men movies this summer (one on the big screen, two on DVD) so this was something good and wholesome for them.
I can say, without going into spoilers, that by and large the acting is flat, the premise is as bad as they say it is, but if you’re under the age of 12, these things probably don’t matter much.
Plus: the obvious product placements for Wendy’s restaurant and for Firefly phones got to be a bit much.
SPOILERS:
- First of all—if you watch the trailers, you miss almost half the point of the movie. The trailers make it look like Tim Allen’s character (a has-been superhero who’s “lost” his powers pro tem) is some enthusiastic go-getter coach who is going to teach the four neo-heroes how to go out and save the world. Instead, in a most annoying bait-and-switch, the coach is a bit reluctant, nasty, sniping and by-and-large unbelievable as a nasty guy; plus if you saw the trailers, you know he doesn’t end up that way. When he’s trying to be a wise-cracking smartass, he just comes off mean. When he tries to be nice, he seems totally ungenuine. He doesn’t generate any chemistry with anyone else on the set at all. When he finally does decide to turn into the rah-rah goodguy coach, it is for no apparent reason; you think you can tie it back to something, but it is just all a confused mishmash.
- Chevy Chase. Nothing he’s done since Caddyshack has been anything of worth.
- The cuteness of the little-girl-who-tosses-around-multiton-weights just can not carry the film for 90 minutes. It even grated on my kids.
- Even for a kid’s movie, the characters are two-dimensional, and the ending far too saccharine.
- Don’t even get me started on the plot—suffice it to say that the movie spends 80 minutes building up to an ending that just doesn’t seem to matter to the characters, wraps itself up into a neat bow through a totally inexplicable deus ex machina and then finishes with a “where are they now” that would lead neatly into a sequel, if for some reason Tim Allen needs to generate another movie to add onto his list. Oh yeah, that tattoo of his is totally idiotic. I don’t know if it’s something just for the movie or if he did that to himself a long time ago, and don’t particularly care. It’s just distracting.