Reader, I am hollow. Mikey was exactly what I expected it would be, and yet here I am, unsatisfied. I feel like a big whiny loser who never gets anything she wants, and yet I also feel like a big whiny winner who gets everything she wants. It's as if I sit atop a pile of jewels–the biggest pile of jewels in all the world–and instead of doing log rolls down the pile and laughing with utter delight, I simply rest my chin in my hand for I've realized that it's all meaningless. How could Mikey reduce me to such? Why, but a few days ago I was all set to turn this place into a Mikey blog!
Ultimately, I think it's just that Mikey brings absolutely nothing new or unusual to the table. It hits every familiar beat in the "killer kid" genre and the "stranger in my house" genre, and unless this is the first film you've ever seen, you know exactly what will happen. Stop me if you've heard this one a million times...
- Mikey kills his family but acts the victim when the cops show
- Mikey acts all sweetness and light, fooling the cops, the social worker, the psychiatrist, and his new adoptive parents
- Everything's great, Mikey is a dream child
- Mikey doesn't get what he wants and starts acting up
- A friend of the family thinks Mikey is really bad and probably killed his last family
- No one believes Friend of the Family, so she digs around in Mikey's history and find some evidence, then goes to present said evidence
- BUT IT'S TOO LATE THE JIG IS UP MIKEY HAS FLIPPED
- Fight fight fight
- It's over, it's finally over
- OR IS IT
I mean, it's all fine. You know? But when the killer kid bar has been set so high...when you've got murderous solar eclipse babies and possessed kids and the spawn of Satan out there...you've just gotta do something to stand out. "All fine" may be all fine, but it certainly does not stand out. Bonsall was just a kid and so I can't necessarily expect the sort of intense performance you get in a similar thriller like The Stepfather. Maybe some extra special murders? I don't know. I feel weird being all blasé and not finding a kid beating his dad to death with a baseball bat to be enough of a thrill, but here we are. It's so lonely and boring here atop all these jewels!
Yes, but what about:
ReplyDelete(a) the armchair psychologizing: "when a kid draws pictures of the water it means he's adventurous" (said while looking at a picture of the drowned corpse of Mikey's dead sister)
(b) the helpful "how not to be a creep" sexuality lesson from Josie Bissett in a one-piece on a paddle-boat: "Looking is fine. Just don't stare."
(c) the fact that their elementary classroom has a REAL CHILD'S SKELETON as a teaching tool. Where did that skeleton come from? Who is the real killer here?!!
and and and. . . I don't know, I just watched it for the first time and loved it. But maybe that's because I've been watching so much Netflix garbage lately.
Ha, that's all very true! I think my favorite bit was Ashley Laurence claiming that Mikey has "unattached syndrome." When asked what that means, she says "psychotic behavior."
ReplyDelete"Unattached Syndrome" makes it sound like he has a "file not found" error. Have you tried rebooting your Mikey?
ReplyDeletePsychotic behavior, but of course!
ReplyDeleteFor someone suffering from "unattached syndrome," Mikey does seem to be unusually attached to his mother's fish, which was strange. Usually psychos in movies are mean to animals, but Mikey is really protective of those fish. Because fish live in water and Mikey kills people in water! It all makes sense!
By the way, did I hear aright? Was his mother's job really to set up aquariums for people? Is that a real job? And if so, why was her own aquarium so sad looking?