So we recorded Toys on our ReplayTV. The channel guide says it gets 1 1/2 stars.
1 1/2 stars!
I understand that Toys isn’t a movie for everyone. It’s a strange, little movie. It was a box-office flop, but that’s probably because people were expecting a movie to make . . . sense. Also, a big problem is that it’s quite singular. It doesn’t fit easily into any particular category. It’s not quite a kid’s movie–a little too creepy, with a little too much sexuality. It’s not really a comedy per se. It’s not fantasy or sci fi. It’s just kind of . . . floaty.
But, really, by any reasonable objective standard it deserves more than 1 1/2 stars. I mean, I’ve watched other 1 1/2 star movies. I’ve watched 2 star movies. They had crappy ass special effects. The FX in Toys are great. They had completely awful acting. While the acting in Toys isn’t Oscar-quality, it’s not wooden, it’s not overwrought. It’s not terrible. And I think LL Cool J, for one, is fabulous. The visual style, while it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, is at least creative and consistent.
Most of the fault with Toys lies in the script. Some jokes that fall flat. And some rampant oddness goes just a touch too far without quite hanging together cohesively. But that doesn’t deserve 1 1/2 stars!!! Who the hell assigns these ratings, anyway?
Okay . . . so, I’ll just let this thread wander where it will. Tell me what you liked best about Toys, or what other 1 1/2 star movies you think have been severly undersold, or if you know who rates these things, do share, please.
Reminds me of the MST3K version of Laserblast (#706). While the credits are running, Mike and the Bots discuss the fact that Leonard Maltin gave the movie 2.5 stars.
If you’ve ever seen Laserblast, you’ll understand why that’s funny.
I’ve tried to watch it, but just can’t get through more than a half hour of any one part. There’s just nobody to root for; the good guys are oddly cool (as in removed, not hip) and the bad guys aren’t really hissable villains. All the problems are so incredibly far from what regular folks deal with and the writer or director or somebody, does a crappy job of helping us see where there might be corollaries in our lives.
And while the acting isn’t particularily bad, even I caught a few places the director should have done another take.
Maybe I should strap myself into a chair and force myself to watch it all the way through. Then again, should I have to resort to such measures? One and a half stars is about a half star too generous.
I haven’t actually seen it since it was in theaters but I remember liking it at the time. I’m not a Robin Williams fan really, but I thought it was really interesting. LL Cool J and Joan Cusack are great.
I’ve always liked this movie, too. It doesn’t really work as a narrative, but it’s got a lot of striking imagery, and a charming sense of whimsy. It’s sort of like a Tim Burton movie on anti-depressants. Robin Williams is surprisingly (and thankfully) restrained, given the setting. And, of course, L.L. Cool J is fabulous. It’s far from a favorite of mine, but it was oddly memorable, in a good way. A lot of it has stayed with me, when I’ve forgotten any number of far superior movies.
On the other hand, I’ve had that damn “Happy Workers” song stuck in my head for going on twelve years now. I’m not too thrilled about that.
I would like to support your campaign to get an unfairly panned movie re-evaluated. Unfortunately, because you chose Toys, I just can’t (despite the occasionally dazzling sets and visuals). To me, this movie is a perfect example of what happens when an at-least fairly competent director tries his hand in an area he has no expertise in. In this case, that was director Barry Levinson (who’s done his best work in realistic, dialogue-driven comedy-dramas like Diner, Tin Men, and Rainman) trying to do a surrealistic Tim Burton/Terry Gilliam-type fantasy and mostly falling flat on his face (just as he did when he tried to do a James Cameron-type of science fiction movie with Sphere).
Also, this was a case of a movie whose time had come and gone. I recall reading that Toys was an early Barry Levinson script that he had written in the early 70’s during the time of the Cold War and Vietnam and had sat around until he had acquired enough clout in Hollywood to get it made. However, by then it was 1992 and the Cold War was over thereby rendering any of the script’s heavy-handed satiric blasts at the arms race and the military-industrial complex dated (at least for the time being). Basically, Levinson should’ve just realized Toys was unpolished early effort and let it sit in his desk drawer.
Huh. Well, I like it - a lot! I think mostly because of the, y’know, TOYS! They are so beautiful! The opening scene is stunning, and I love the scenery, the factory and most of the dialog. Joan Cusack is wonderful, and I agree with the OP’s assessment of Ice Cube. It’s one of my faves.
But then, I liked Death To Smoothy, so obviously I have, shall we say, different tastes…
I am intrigued by this discourse and my curiosity has been piqued.
I’ve never seen the movie and probably never will because I absolutely LOATHE Robin Williams. I barely tolerated him in that Matt Damon Ben Affleck movie and was only glad he won the Oscar so we could stop hearing about how such a wonderful actor still hadn’t won the damn thing. :rolleyes:
But, can someone spoilerize the plot for me? (I understand from the above that the word ‘plot’ may not specifically apply to this movie but you know what I mean)
And was it LL Cool J or Ice Cube who was so fabulous in this 1.5 star film?
Oh, great. Now it looks like felt the need to SHOUT in the title.
I didn’t put “Toys” in the title because it’s in the first few words of the OP and would appear on mouseover, and, as I said in the OP, I didn’t necessarily mean it to be a thread about Toys; it could be about movies that got the shaft ratings wise.
Anyway, HelloKitty, it was LL Cool J. And here’s a summary of the plot:
[spoiler]The owner of Zevo toys is dying. He asks his brother Lt. Geneal Leland Zevo to take over the company. He says it’s because he doesn’t feel that his son Leslie (Robin Williams) is mature enough to take ove for him, but he reveals later that he knows the General will do a terrible job, and he knows that Leslie will be forced to stand up for the company and force the General out, so he is doing this to help Leslie grow up and find his inner strength.
The General hatches a nefarious secret plot to make toy-sized remote control weapons for the military, run by children who think they are playing video games. His son, Patrick (LL Cool J), a covert ops specialist, is brought in to do security. (One of my favorite things about the movie is that, obviously, Patrick is black. The General and the rest of the Zevos are white. Patrick’s mother is alluded to several times—once as a “Jane Fonda lookalike”! And yet race isn’t mentioned at all. Ever. That tickles me no end.)
As the General takes over more and more of the factory for his secret weapons project, he crowds out the work of Leslie, his design team (who are hilariously modern-businessperson-like as they discuss the merits of various novelty items, such as fake vomit), his childlike sister Alsatia (Joan Cusack) and his new girlfriend (Robin Wright Penn). Leslie dithers a lot, unhappy with what is happening, but unwilling to confront his uncle. He finally gets up the courage to sneak into the restricted area. When Leslie discovers what is going on, the General nearly kills Leslie. Patrick is shocked by this goes over to the other side. There is a final climactic battle between innocent, wind-up Zevo toys and the General’s remote-control weapons. You can probably guess who wins.[/spoiler]
I wasn’t too impressed by Toys, but what redeemed it for me was the music. The movie’s forgettable, but IMHO the soundtrack is a minor masterpiece with some really nice eclectic tunes on it. “The Closing of the Year” is a lovely holiday piece, “Let Joy and Innocence Prevail” (sung by Grace Jones) never fails to make me cry, and “Happy Workers” is just fun–as is the “Steve and Yolanda” piece (credited that way but really done by Thomas Dolby).
Plus it led me to Tori Amos’s “Little Earthquakes” (she does “Happy Workers” on the soundtrack) and that was worth it right there.
There are movies that I like that, if you disagree, I may feel compelled to defend the movie and explain at length about why I like it. Kill Bill, for example.
There are also movies that I like that, if you tell me that they are among the worse films ever made, and anyone who likes them are idiot-spawn out to destroy Western Civilization, I would only smile and shrug, since defending these films is pointless, and some part of me agrees with you anyway.
Toys falls into the latter category. I liked it, but I can certainly see why many, many, others didn’t.