{"id":3845,"date":"2024-09-06T03:18:11","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T03:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3845"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:57:37","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:57:37","slug":"heavyweights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/06\/heavyweights\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavyweights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Heavyweights <\/strong>(1995)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 100 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (rude language, gluttony, pranks)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Steven Brill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Judd Apatow and Steven Brill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: J.A.C. Redford\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Victor Hammer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 17, 1995 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Aaron Schwartz, Ben Stiller, Tom McGowan, Kenan Thompson, Shaun Weiss, Paul Feig, Leah Lail, Tom Hodges, Jeffrey Tambor, Nancy Ringham, Allen Covert, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Tim Blake Nelson, Judd Apatow.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $17.6M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

Think of Heavyweights<\/strong> as Meatballs crossed with a junior Weight Watchers meeting. It could have been nothing more than an extended fat joke, but it\u2019s anything but. The fat kids are the heroes as opposed to the butt of every single joke.<\/p>\n

Heavyweights<\/strong> is your basic underdog comedy, a \u201cslobs vs. snobs\u201d affair that pits the overweight youngsters at Camp Hope against the snooty athletic kids at Camp MVP in the finale. They are not the real enemy, however. That would be Tony Perkis (Stiller, Meet the Parents), the psychotic new camp owner who turns a fun place into a living hell. Ah yes, the fun-hating adult authority figure as nemesis. It\u2019s a formula that tends to work more often than not in comedies aimed at the preteen and teen sets.<\/p>\n

Although it bombed at the box office, Heavyweights <\/strong>has garnered a cult following over the years. One of its fans is filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights) who told co-writer Apatow it\u2019s a film he loves. With that kind of endorsement, I\u2019m surprised he didn\u2019t immediately start to work on a sequel. I probably would have enjoyed it myself. Heavyweights<\/strong> is a funny, good-natured summer camp comedy with enough rude humor to please the 12YOs in the audience. It doesn\u2019t pretend to be anything more than that. The only mistake Disney made was not releasing it in early summer just as school let out. It\u2019s the ideal movie for that time of year.<\/p>\n

On the last day of school, Gerry (Schwartz, The Mighty Ducks) learns his parents have signed him up for Camp Hope, a weight loss camp for boys. He doesn\u2019t want to go, but changes his mind after seeing a promotional video that shows the campers having a blast. It doesn\u2019t take him long to make new friends like veteran camper Roy (Thompson, SNL) and longtime counselor Pat (McGowan, Ghost World). It\u2019s shaping up to be a great summer until he and the rest of the camp learn that the original owners (Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, Ben\u2019s parents) went bankrupt and had to sell Camp Hope to fitness entrepreneur Perkis.<\/p>\n

The new owner, a real meanie, announces his plans to initiate an intense exercise program and film the campers\u2019 progress for a weight loss infomercial. Camp Hope quickly becomes Camp Hell as the lunatic confiscates all the junk food smuggled in by the campers and cuts off their contact with the outside world. He demotes Pat to groundskeeper after bringing in his own staff. He dismantles the go-karts and deflates \u201cThe Blob\u201d, a huge moonbounce that sits on the lake. Instead of showing the kids a good time, he humiliates them with regular weigh-ins and verbal abuse. Some of the kids decide enough is enough and devise a plan to bring Tony down.<\/p>\n

I could sit here and talk about whether or not Heavyweights<\/strong> is responsible with its message about a positive self-image in the context of a comedy about fat kids. I won\u2019t do that because the fact that these kids are fat is precisely what makes it work. There\u2019s never been a movie where this subject has been approached as anything other than a joke. How many teen comedies of the 70s and 80s had fat slobs in them? A few come to mind- Animal House, Meatballs, Joysticks, Screwballs and Up the Creek, just to name a few.<\/p>\n

In Heavyweights<\/strong>, the fat kids are the main characters while the jocks are the villains. By way of a climax, the two camps compete in an annual contest involving much physical activity. Yep, it\u2019s pretty much the same conclusion as Meatballs. It\u2019s completely predictable, but it works just the same. We\u2019ve come to like the chubby underdogs and root for them to put those conceited jocks in their place.<\/p>\n

That being said, I\u2019d like to point something out about Heavyweights<\/strong>, something that may escape the viewer\u2019s notice. I\u2019ve already stated that the fat kids are NOT the target of ridicule. That position is taken by Tony Perkis, a stand-in for all those obnoxious, in-your-face self-improvement gurus who hawk their programs on annoying, in-your-face infomercials in the wee hours of the morning. These people are ridiculous and director Steven Brill (Mighty Ducks 1 & 2) takes full advantage of this. Perkis is a complete idiot in addition to being a sadistic bully. Ben Stiller turns in a hyperkinetic performance worthy of Jim Carrey.<\/p>\n

In short, I like what Brill does with Heavyweights<\/strong>. I don\u2019t want to make this picture sound like it has any gravitas. Perhaps I\u2019ve overanalyzed it a bit? It\u2019s a fun, lightweight comedy that\u2019s sure to entertain the kids. The soundtrack is pretty good with vintage 70s tunes like \u201cYou Sexy Thing\u201d (Hot Chocolate), \u201cSaturday Night\u201d (Bay City Rollers) and \u201cLove Machine\u201d (The Miracles). My only real complaint is that I would have liked to have seen the romance between Pat and the attractive camp nurse Julie (Lail, Little Nicky) developed a bit more. Still, it\u2019s an enjoyable little movie about a bunch of big kids with bigger hearts. Disney should go back to making cool flicks like this instead of expensive wannabe blockbusters. Please spare us Pirates of the Caribbean 5 and the like.\"\"<\/p>\n

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Heavyweights (1995)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 100 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (rude language, gluttony, pranks)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Steven Brill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Judd Apatow and Steven Brill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: J.A.C. Redford\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Victor Hammer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 17, 1995 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Aaron Schwartz, Ben Stiller, Tom McGowan, Kenan Thompson, Shaun Weiss, Paul Feig, Leah Lail, Tom Hodges, Jeffrey Tambor, Nancy Ringham, Allen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4916,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Heavyweights-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3845"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4917,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions\/4917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}