North (1994) Columbia Pictures/Comedy-Drama RT: 87 minutes Rated PG (language, some violent content, brief partial nudity, mild sexual/anatomical references) Director: Rob Reiner Screenplay: Alan Zweibel and Andrew Scheinman Music: Marc Shaiman Cinematography: Adam Greenberg Release date: July 22, 1994 (US) Starring: Elijah Wood, Bruce Willis, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jon Lovitz, Matt McCurley, Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Reba McEntire, Lauren Tom, Keone Young, Kathy Bates, Graham Greene, Abe Vigoda, Richard Belzer, Ben Stein, John Ritter, Faith Ford, Scarlett Johansson, Jesse Zeigler, Alexander Gudunov, Kelly McGillis, Robert Constanzo, Jussie Smollett. Box Office: $7.1M (US)
Rating: NO STARS!!!
No review of North would be complete without mentioning Roger Ebert’s infamous review of the 1994 debacle. He put it quite succinctly when he said, “I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. I hated it.” He’s absolutely right, North is a very hateable movie! It’s terrible! It’s interesting only in the way a train wreck is interesting. You know it’s a horrible sight, but you can’t seem to take your eyes away from it, you just have to see what comes next. Let me clear, that’s NOT any kind of a recommendation; it’s merely a metaphor for how wrong this movie is.
I can’t believe that Rob Reiner directed North. The same director who made one of the best films about childhood (Stand by Me) does a complete 180 and gives us the worst film about childhood EVER! It would be bad enough if North was merely a bad movie, but it’s also an extremely irresponsible movie. I’ll explain that in more detail later, but Reiner must have been in full Meathead mode when he made this movie.
Let me kick things off with a warning. No parent in their right mind should allow their children to watch North. In fact, nobody in their right mind should EVER watch North. It’s the most morally and creatively bankrupt piece of sentimental drivel I’ve ever had the displeasure of watching. Yes, I have seen Table for Five and I still stand by my statement.
11YO North (Wood, the Lord of the Rings trilogy) is the perfect child. He excels in every single one of his endeavors. He gets good grades in school, he’s a gifted athlete and audiences rave about his leading performances in his school plays. Every parent wants their child to be like North. The only ones who don’t appreciate him are his own self-absorbed parents (Alexander and Louis-Dreyfus, Seinfeld). No matter what the kid does, his parents don’t notice. They’re too wrapped up in their careers and themselves. He decides to divorce them and search the world for the perfect set of parents. They’re so shocked when they receive the news that they instantly go comatose. The judge (Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine) rules in the boy’s favor, but makes the stipulation that he must physically be in the arms of his new parents (or the old ones should he change his mind) by noon on Labor Day. If not, he’ll be placed in an orphanage. That gives him about two months to find his new family, so he starts travelling the globe in search of the perfect parents.
Guess what? No matter where North goes, no matter who the candidates are, none of them cut the mustard. His first stop is Texas where he meets the extremely wealthy Tex family (Aykroyd and McEntire). It doesn’t work out because they want him to be EXACTLY like their previous (and deceased) son. He goes to Hawaii and meets Governor and Mrs. Ho (Young and Tom). It doesn’t work out because they want to use him to entice people from the mainland to settle in Hawaii. He goes to Alaska and meets an Eskimo couple (Bates and Greene) who send their elderly grandfather (Vigoda) out to sea on an ice floe to die. Needless to say, it doesn’t work out. The movie goes on like that until he meets the Nelsons (Ritter and Ford), a picture perfect couple with two other children. They live in one of those perfect houses in a perfect small town. North thinks that he may have finally found the perfect family, but something still doesn’t feel quite right. They’re great parents, but they’re not HIS parents. It’s a hell of a burden for an 11YO boy.
Earlier, I mentioned that North is an irresponsible movie. Okay, I’m about to tell you why. One of North’s classmates, a truly reprehensible boy named Wendell (McCurley), uses the divorce as a platform for a worldwide anti-parent movement. He urges all children to hold their parents at “emotional gunpoint” and threaten them with divorce unless they meet every one of their demands. North’s lawyer Arthur Belt (Lovitz) is deeply involved in this situation. Wendell has promised to make him President in exchange for his assistance. Wait a minute, let me get this straight. This so-called kid’s movie actually encourages bad behavior? It certainly doesn’t appear to discourage it.
Wendell is more than just a bratty kid, he’s a little sociopath! Not only does he start a rebellion, he intends to make a martyr of North if he decides to return to his biological parents. That leads to a very uncomfortable scene of a professional hit man chasing North around New York and shooting at him. Wendell makes Damien Thorn look like a saint. As for that lawyer, he’s obviously an unethical half-wit. Who else would let a slimy little creep like Wendell call the shots? Can you say “disbarment”? What the hell was Reiner thinking when he made this movie? As unbelievable and implausible as it is, North is no harmless fantasy. God only knows what kind of ideas an impressionable child might get from this. I shudder to think.
North is a total embarrassment to everybody involved, right down to the poor guy who swept up at the end of each day. Bruce Willis should receive some sort of compensation for appearing in this mess. When we first meet his character, he’s wearing a pink bunny suit. So help me God, a pink bunny suit. It might look funny on Ralphie from A Christmas Story, but it looks pathetic and desperate on a grown man. Honestly, I’m not sure who Willis was supposed to be in this movie. He shows up everywhere in different guises- cowboy, beach bum, sleigh driver, lounge comedian, Fed Ex driver and so forth. He offers the boy helpful advice through every step of his journey. Is he supposed to be the kid’s conscience? I have no idea!
Reiner should be ashamed of himself. I don’t think his career has ever fully recovered. With the sole exceptions of The American President and Flipped, it’s just been one disappointing movie after another for the director who used to have the Midas touch. The list includes Ghosts of Mississippi, The Story of Us, Alex & Emma and Rumor Has It. He doesn’t even have the decency to end North in any kind of meaningful way. The ending is a complete cheat! I won’t go into detail, but it’s one of the worst non-endings that I’ve ever seen. All of the actors who appear in this movie have done better, but I can’t be too hard on them since it’s doubtful that they could have known how the movie would turn out. Poor Scarlett Johansson, she has to live with the fact that she makes her debut appearance in this awful movie. North isn’t funny, it isn’t touching, it isn’t sweet and it isn’t entertaining. It’s a colossal waste of time and talent. It shows nothing but contempt for the audience and it should be treated with equal (if not greater) contempt.
