Review: Death to Smoochy

Death to Smoochy is a satire not even worth explaining, reviewing it is even a task for that matter. The film has about every explainable, and unexplainable, plot hole ever seen before in the movie business. The flick has three huge stars in three incredibly annoying roles, Robin Williams as the scumbag Rainbow Randolph, Edward Norton as the health and happiness freak, Smoochy, and Danny Devito as the agent of both of the two of them. Why are so many talented actors and actresses resorting to such stupid and boring roles that don’t challenge them one bit is what I don’t know. In this movie we get Academy Award winners dancing and playing with kids in plastic costumes. A decade ago that wasn’t even heard of.

The story starts out with Rainbow Randolph, a lovable children’s T.V. show character, whom is later found out to be a scumbag, straight from the toilet, and when the show finds out about this the hard way; he is fired. His replacement is Smoochy, a rhinoceros who loves the earth and all of its beings. Randolf is sickened by his show is becoming, and is deeply in need of revenge. At this point, there is actually quite a devious satire building, but nothing gets very good afterwards. We get unoriginal, cutter-cookie jokes about giant cocks, blow jobs, and organic soy hot dogs. Death to Smoochy starts out wonderfully, but after the first twenty minutes we are bottomless pitting through a land of nothingness.

The sets and choreography were actually quite colorful and imaginary. The dances that the actors do on the television show are tremendously realistic, though we do get several sexual references along with them. The bright and shiny neon set-work was excellent in its delivery, and the green-screen jobs were even more fantastic. This is about the only thing that Death to Smoochy excels in, and without this aspect the entire feature would be diddly-squat; absolutely nothing, a zero-bucketer. I am expressing extreme gratitude towards the artsy area, but right now I doubt the filmmakers are; the production budget was near fifty-million because of this, and in theatrical box office the total gross was around one fifth of that.

Though I have little to say about this horrid creation from hell, there is one particular scene that I would like to talk about. In this one clip, Robin Williams appears to be in not two, but three places at once. Though the video is not simultaneously streamed, in order for him to charge his costume three times in sixty seconds and look good enough for the camera is physically impossible. You might ask if I am just missing a time change between the different shots, but I am sure that’s not the case, I have replayed the video multiple times. The extreme amount character confusion is one of the movies biggest problems. They have actors playing, or at least pretending to play, multiple characters; which doesn’t work. Almost any American can spot Robin Williams’ face from fifty miles away; it’s easy to see him disguised in three different roles, especially in the same movie.

In the beginning Death to Smoochy, puts up a strong fight; but the end result is much less than average. Three stupid performances from Robin Williams, Danny DeVito, and especially Edward Norton make the film not funny in a good way, but in a terribly wrong uncertainty. We have already seen Barney, and need nothing to remind us of the man that he probably is in real life. As for now, and for ever after, Death to Smoochy is a complete waste of time that doesn’t even provide laughs, and should not be remembered under any circumstances.

-Danny, Bucket Reviews