Meatballs
There’s little doubt that Meatballs‘ extremely mild success is due entirely to Bill Murray’s incredibly charismatic and thoroughly entertaining performance, as the film surrounding him is essentially plotless and predictable. Murray, who has clearly improvised the majority of his dialogue, elevates the proceedings to something that’s almost watchable, though there’s certainly no denying that one’s interest wanes considerably whenever he’s not on screen. The egregiously thin storyline, which revolves around the wacky hijinks that ensue at a low-rent summer camp, has been peppered with a number of melodramatic subplots, as most of the characters are saddled with overly obvious arcs that simply aren’t all that interesting – with this particularly true of the lonely, put-upon kid that Murray’s Tripper Harrison takes under his wing. And while director Ivan Reitman, working from Len Blum, Daniel Goldberg, Janis Allen, and Harold Ramis’ screenplay, does a nice job of infusing the film with an appropriately silly and lighthearted atmosphere, Meatballs is ultimately just not able to live up to its inexplicable reputation as a minor cult classic.
** out of ****
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