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Monday, July 17, 2023

Movie Review: Munchie Strikes Back

Stars: 2 out of 5
Pros: A few fun moments
Cons: Overall, obvious story with mostly poor acting
The Bottom Line:
Munchie here to help
A weird, low budget movie
You can skip this one


“Did You Every Have the Feeling You Were Making a Monumental Mistake?”

You might have noticed that I tend to read or watch (and then review) things in order.  I didn’t used to be this OCD about things, but I’ve become that much more as an adult as I find I enjoy understanding the full context instead of trying to guess at it.  Yet, I didn’t try to watch either of the earlier movies with Munchie in them, instead jumping straight into Munchie Strikes Back.  It didn’t encourage me to go back and watch the movies I had missed.

I don’t remember hearing about these movies before.  This particular one came out in 1994 and features Munchie (a puppet voiced by Howard Hesseman).  He’s a magical creature who is focused on partying and wreaking havoc.  However, he gets called before a higher court, and is given a choice.  He can either go to the dullest galaxy in the universe or go back to Earth and help the McClelland Family.  Naturally, he chooses to go back to Earth.

It's at this point, we meet the McClellands.  Linda (Leslie-Anne Down), has just lost her job working for Shelby Carlisle (Andrew Stevens).  It couldn’t have come at a worse time as the balloon payment she and her late husband agreed to on their home mortgage is coming due in two weeks, and she can’t get a new loan without a job.

Meanwhile, her son, Chris (Trenton Knight), is dealing with Bret (Cory Mendelson), an egotistical neighbor who happens to be the best player on his baseball team.  And his crush, Jennifer (Natanya Ross), is more interested in Bret than Chris.

Enter the magical Munchie, who only Chris can see.  How might he go about solving their problems?

Honestly, there is nothing here you haven’t seen before.  There are some fun lines and a few lines I couldn’t believe they’d put in the movie just because they felt a little cliché.  It also felt like they were ripping off other movies, especially when we came to the part of the climax that deals with Shelby.  Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to see him get his comeuppance, but that was the only way they could go about it?

The story was a bit unusual in that it focused on Chris and his problems before moving on to other things instead of really weaving these storylines in and out of each other.  The climax really focused on things set up early on but that hadn’t been our focus up until that point.  I found that an usual structure.

I have no idea how this movie was released (theater, straight to video, TV movie, etc.), but it is obvious the movie was low budget.  The effects are passable but clearly dated.  I’d suspect they looked rather low budget even back then.

Speaking of back then, this movie definitely came out in the mid-90’s.  Some of the references are very dated now.  And even so, I was a little surprised they made some of the references they did.  No, not because they are adult in nature, but they did feel out of place and took me out of the story.

Then there’s the acting.  The kids were mostly fine.  However, the adults all felt like they were doing the purposeful over the top acting that you’ll see people watching in TV and films.  But no, that was them actually trying to be serious as actors.  Since I’m not familiar with the actors, I’m not sure if it was them or the direction they were given.  But since it was pretty universal, I’m going to assume it was the direction.

With another pass at the script and better acting, this could have been an entertaining kids’ movie.  Instead, we got this mess.  I’m not that sorry I skipped the earlier movies.  There’s really no reason to watch Munchie Strikes Back.

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