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While
it's by no means the worst light and fluffy Christmas - or kids - movie
thats ever been unleashed onto audiences, there is something that
doesn't quite sit right throughout UM.
Every inch of the flick is colour-by-numbers (which isn't a bad thing),
but whoever is holding the crayons hasn't seemed to colour to the very
edge of the line.
The idea works well enough: Christmas Eve in a
snowed in airport with five kids flying solo - and not a parent in
sight. There's the Grumpy Airport manager with a heart of stone, the
young flight attendant who is willing to help the kids and, of course,
the motive of saving Christmas. All the pieces of the puzzle are there!
However, it seems director Paul Feig was struggling to make them fit
together seamlessly (like when you try and jam two puzzle pieces that
don't fit together until they do).
There are still plenty of
laughs to be had - and no doubt the kids will be entertained for 90 or
so minutes - with plenty of slapstick on offer (a scene in which
'smarty pants' Charlie is trapped in a suitcase delivers more than a
few chuckles) and just enough heart warming smiles to keep it above
average.
The casting, too, it seems to miss the mark completely as well. Unaccompanied Minors see's the biggest collection of loved supporting TV cast members ever assembled including Wilmer Valderrama (Fez from That 70s Show), SNL's Rob Riggle and Kristen Wiig, David Koechner (Champ Kind from Anchorman), The Office's B.J. Novak, The guys from Kids In The Hall and Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development) to name but a few. I can't even count the number of times I used the phrase "Oh, that's that guy from .... ".
Not
that it's a bad cast - in fact, it's a superb ensemble with some of my
favourite actors - but all of which would be completely unrecognisable
to the target audience. Even comedian Lewis Black (who was huge in the
US, but may have done his last dash in cinemas after the Box Office
failures of his star-vehicles Accepted, Man of the Year and UM) is a quality cast member who a 10 year old wouldn't be able to distinguish between a garbage man and a comedy star.
The only person that seems to get it right is Everybody Hates Chris' Tyler James Williams, who is just fantastic - and delivers a laugh every single time he's on screen.
Problems
aside, there are some quality moments on offer (kids comedies aren't
meant to be works of art, when done right you end up with Mighty Ducks or Home Alone 2 which are great for the whole family) - but it seems more than likely the future for UM lies during the Midday Movie slot come December.
EXTRAS
Not
surprisingly, theres not even a hint of an extra on offer here. The
movie only managed a paltry $16 million in the US - and barely scraped
a theatrical release in Oz, so theres no guessing as to why.
It's a real shame too, because Unaccompanied Minors had the potential to be so much more... Conclusion:
Movie 65% Extras: N/A
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