Wednesday 3 December 2014

Vault Reviews: Foodfight! (2012)

Does so bad it's good even apply here?


So bad it's good (SBiG) is a term commonly used to describe films which are entertaining despite being terrible, mainly through unintentional hilarity. I have enjoyed many films for being SBiG, for example "The Room" and "Plan 9 From Outer Space". However I would argue that Foodfight! is not even worthy of that dubious honour, and here's why; It is far too dull. The film reaches an almost mind-bending degree of total failure, to the point where it becomes hard to rationalise and understand, never mind mock. 

Foodfight!'s animation is probably it's most glaring flaw. It looks horrifying, absolutely unacceptable by the standards that were in place by 2012. Perhaps it would have been more tolerable in the early 2000's, provided the broken facial expressions and hideous textures were improved, however it is insulting to expect a paying audience in 2012 to tolerate this crap. There is little to talk about here, aside from how obviously ugly this film is.

The writing is honestly a greater insult to me than the animation. Almost every conversation or exchange of dialogue contains puns, bad puns. Puns constitute 80% or so of the film's limp and flaccid attempts at humour. These puns vary from bad, to eye-bulging in their failure, it is a pathetic defeat to see 5 PROFESSIONAL WRITERS produce this horrendous quality of humour. Aside the puns, the film's dialogue is disjointed and completely nonsensical, it becomes unintelligible noise after around 20 minutes or so. There are also some worryingly misogynistic and sexual elements at play in this 'script', for a film supposedly meant for young children. If I were to discover that this film was written in one sitting and was partially intended as a joke, I would totally believe it.

The audio quality also causes me to tilt my head in sheer bewilderment. Some lines, sometimes from the same character, are of drastically lower quality than others in terms of audio clarity. This problem gets worse towards the film's end, leading me to assume that the more expensive microphones were lost or sold later in the film's production, meaning cheaper mics had to used. The quality honestly reaches shocking levels of awfulness, and becomes near to unlistenable at points.

Overall, this film fails in every notable area. It is hideous in every strata of it's existence, to a point in which it stops being funny and simply becomes sad to witness. This is the audio/visionary equivalent of having a sowing needle impaled through your toe, if that makes any sense.

Originally posted 21/11/14 on IMDB.com


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