DISNEY'S HOCUS POCUS

You know as a kid, I heard a lot of hype about this movie from Disney Channel and my friends. As I looked at the trailers and TV promos for this film, I began to wonder what's so good about this flick, it looks like it's gonna suck. So as you may have guessed, I finally watched the film and the question still remains, what so good about...

A young virgin named Max stupidly lights a magic candle and Three Witches appear. The Witches goal is to suck the life from the children so they can be young forever. However, the idiot virgin who light the candle tries to stop them.

Let's start with the Three Witches, who I like to call the film's bate. The Three Witches are played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy. These are obviously some big named stars, are they good here? Well, I'm under the impression that these characters are supposed to be both funny and scary. However, they're not any of that, they're annoyingly obnoxious. Not one of them give a good performance in the least and that's sad because they're really fine actresses. Bette Midler as the leader is just straight out annoying and obnoxious and boy does that chipmunk face doesn't help her either. Kathy Najimy as the witch who can sniff out children is no Child Catcher and her performance is so annoying that I never would have guessed that this is the same actress who's made me laugh in many other films and TV shows. Finally you have Sarah Jessica Parker, with her obnoxious over the top acting and uncomfortably suggestive performance who I like to call the dumb whore of the group of witches. If you're thinking "Tyler, you would have liked them as a kid", well actually no, in fact, these characters were the reason why I avoided the movie in the first place as a kid and I knew I should have still.

Now the heroes and supporting characters. One question, am I supposed to care about them? I mean, did anyone else care about what happens to Max, Dani or Allison? What's likable about them, they're bland, they're not interesting, and on top of it, they have to be one of the biggest idiots ever to be put on screen. Granted the Witches are probably bigger idiots than they are since they fall for the heroes tricks and can't do anything about it despite having magical powers, but I'm sorry, even though they have an IQ that's one percent higher then the Witches, they still stink. It's normal, for people to make mistakes, but these kids just keep making more and more of them as the film goes on. We also have two useless bullies who are surprisingly not idiots, they're actually the biggest bully losers and cliche bully stereotype that I've ever seen and I don't mean that in a good way. They're beyond lame! There's also this Zombie who I'm convinced is one of Tim Burton's rejected monsters from "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Aside from the Witches, I think the only other character that the kids cared about when watching this movie is the talking cat. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that there's a teen from the 1693 who's been turned into a Cat and is immortal. Cool concept, but man is his personality bland and boring which I find disappointing since the actor himself is a good voice actor(You might know him as Goofy son Max when he was a teenager or as Chester in "The Fairly Odd Parents"). By the way, the spell book apparently has a personality...I don't get it?!

The film itself has no good comedy, a bland atmosphere, it's insufferably corny, and the good effects and ideas surprisingly come off as boring or represent something bad and stupid. The songs, well, I'll admit this, I did kind of like Bette Midler's "I Put A Spell On You" number, but at the same time, I felt like it was very forced into the movie and becomes sadly just as obnoxious as her acting in the film. Even her "Gypsy" reference (Which by the way she was great in, and did it when this film was made) felt desperate. The only scene I liked and found chilling was when Sarah Jessica Parker sings a song that lures children to her trap, that's a cool and freaky song but sadly it doesn't save the film by any means. My biggest distraction and problem with this whole film is its sexual innuendos. I mean this is a family film and on top of it a Disney film and the film is chunk full of sexual innuendos one after another. In fact, they really say Virgin a lot in this film don't they, not to mention that being a Virgin is one of the keys to summoning the Witches in the film. It's almost like the film is saying "Get laid or you'll summon three annoying and deadly Witches that will take over the world". You know half of the suggestive dialogue I hear, I can't believe that I'm hearing this in a Disney film, PG or not. 

What can I say, it's really one of the worst live action Disney films I ever seen and how it got popular is beyond me. If you like it, fine, but for me and looking at the big picture, it's just a huge mess and I simply can't see any good in it nor can I sense effort being put into it. "Hocus Pocus", more like "Hocus Bogus".

RATING 0/5