Thighs Wide Shut

The Beaver
Leave It
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 91 min

Mel Gibson is a guy in a deep funk, on the edge of much darkness.  Everyone’s given up on him, and he has nowhere really to go but further down a bottle of liquor.  No, we’re not talking about Mel Gibson the person, we’re talking about the character Mel Gibson plays in pal Jodie Foster‘s The Beaver.  Eager to see this disaster of a man play a disaster of a man put on display?  Of course you and we are.  Who doesn’t love watching a good ole train wreck, or indulging in things/people we can’t stand or that hate us for no good reason other than our control of the banks and the medi (how else do you explain why we relish in watching anything with Hitler in it, or can’t turn away from a Duke basketball game?).  Problem is, the man isn’t a disaster, the movie is!!!

The Beaver comes down to this: can you buy into a character who finds renewed passion for the Christ life with the help of a puppet he’s got his own fingers up in?  If it was played strictly for laughs, with a small slice of heart, it would work, but The Beaver oozes with way too much seriousness and sappiness, and we weren’t buying it for a second.  Maybe if the beaver was voiced by Jerry Mathers, we could suspend our disbelief, but the beav’s voice is Mel’s own, in a super-annoying cockney Australian accent that is so grating that it almost works as an anti-Australian tourism or anti-puppetry campaign.  More like camp-PAIN!!!!  Urgh!!!

So if you can’t buy into the beaver in The Beaver right off the bat, you’ll be stuck rolling your eyes until it’s time to roll out of the theater.  To make matters even worse, there’s a parallel story about Mel’s son (the ever annoying Anton Yelchin), who’s trying everything in his power to not end up like the old man.  By day he writes classmates’ papers for pay, and by night, he’s a whiny little bitch.  His latest client is the school’s arty smarty hottie (grumpy faced Jennifer Lawrence, not saying ‘you seen my daddy‘ 38388 times over this time) and it’s so not at all interesting that we won’t even bother elaborating about them

Writer Kyle Killen‘s story started out as a short one, and then went full blown, and then ended up as one of those Black Listers (best unproduced screenplays), but by the results, it probably should have remained black listed, or maybe just a short story, or juss anything that wasn’t Ordinary People Muppets

Nice Beaver:

via

Verdictgo: even though Mel’s performance is a slight draw here, nothing else is, so Slit Yer Eyes Out Repoopulous

Beaver is puppetry of the leanest today in select cities

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…