I had never heard of the 2010 film ‘Furry Vengeance’. But someone recommended it to my husband, and he thought it sounded intriguing, so put it on his wishlist. He was given it for Christmas, and we decided to watch it last night. I hadn’t even read the blurb so had no idea what it was about…
(Amazon UK link)
The basic story is that Dan (Brendan Fraser), a property developer. has moved to a new location in the US. He has dragged his wife Tammy (Brooke Shields) and teenage son Tyler (Matt Prokop) with him, promising that they’re there for no more than a year. He has contractors digging and building, and trying to get rid of some of the wildlife, despite the fact that he’s supposed to be working for a green, eco-friendly company.
Reality then has to be suspended, because some of the local wildlife start fighting to defend their territory. Racoons, rabbits, squirrels, even a bear. They fight not just by eating plants and making messes, but by organised attacks on cars, subtle nibbling of hose pipes, even removing plugs from sockets to try to make life more difficult.
It all seemed rather silly in the first half hour or so, with a lot of slapstick that I didn’t find funny at all. We both assumed that the animals were all created via CGI although when we watched the ‘extras’ at the end, we learned that in most of the film, real animals were used, along with their trainers and a lot of treats. I wish I’d known that before I started watching, as I think I would have appreciated it rather more.
After half an hour I was quite tempted to give up, but decided I keep watching to the end, in case it got better. The story about the planned development was at least slightly interesting, and the meetings Dan has with his boss, Neil Lyman (Ken Jeong) are mildly amusing, if one ignores the fact that it portrays greedy capitalists not just after money but trying to make themselves look ecologically minded even though they are not.
The script isn’t great, but the actors do a good job - Brendan Fraser in particular seems to be up for anything, so we see him in all kinds of awkward situations: with wet trousers, wearing his wife’s jogging clothes, stuck in a porta-loo, covered in tomato juice… and more. The story gets increasingly ridiculous as the battle wages, and there isn’t much chemistry between Dan and Tammy, although they’re supposedly close. There’s a sideline story involving Tyler meeting a girl at the library, which works well - and there’s a lot more chemistry there - but unfortunately it’s left a bit open at the end of the film.
I have to admit that, in the last half hour, I did smile a couple of times at some of the timing of the increasingly ridiculous slapstick. I found myself wondering what age-group the film is intended for; it’s rated PG, probably because there’s a fair bit of mild violence shown. It’s mostly intended to be humorous, I think, although I dislike slapstick in general and found some of it made me wince. I suspect children of around eight or nine, going through the ‘toilet humour’ stage, might appreciate it, although I don’t know how far they would follow the underlying story and the conversations (and a few ironies) relating to the eco-movement.
I did like the title sequence at the end of the film, involving the cast dancing, dressed as if they were in other well-known films. Brooke Shields is particularly impressive in this. But it’s a bit sad when the most enjoyable part of any film is the end title sequence.
The extras are worth seeing, particularly the one about working with animals. Obviously there’s some CGI involved but it’s done so seamlessly that we really didn’t guess there were real animals and birds involved too. We did notice the times when puppets were used, however...
Not something I plan on seeing again, unless one of my grandchildren wants to see it with me.
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