Rating: B+Recently, I thought of a movie that I hadn’t seen in a long time. This was a movie that I watched over and over again when it came out. Now, you have to know that when it came out, I was only six years old and was in love with Nickelodeon. Having said that, I was looking into the recesses of the internet and happened upon one of the great childhood movies of all time, Good Burger.
This movie starred one of the greatest comedy duos for childhood entertainment, Kenan Thompson, who is now a star on Saturday Night Live, and Kel Mitchell, who is seemingly nowhere to be found these days. This pair got their start in entertainment with the Nickelodeon television show, All That, which was in essence a children’s version of Saturday Night Live. For what this movie was supposed to be for the kids, it did very well in the acting department, however looking back at it sometime later with adult eyes, I realize that acting does mean a whole lot to kids. However, it doesn’t need to. In its own way, the director, Brian Robbins, gets to teach children a little about the world of competitive business, mirroring actual restaurants like McDonald’s and Burger King. As well as the moral lessons that always come with children’s films, which are basically always “don’t do bad things”, and this film is no exception. The bad guys go to jail for using illegal substances in the food that they are selling to their customers, and the good guys win for sticking to the inventiveness of a dope.
The basic plot of the film follows the path of a very young burger-flipper named Ed (Kel Mitchell) who is as remedial as humanly possible causing a car accident for the unlicensed high school student Dexter Reed (Kenan Thompson) who has just started his summer vacation. After slamming into his teacher Mr. Wheat (Sinbad), Dexter’s friend, Jake (Marques Houston) who was riding in the car runs off never to be seen again, it is presumed that Sinbad caught up to him and threatened to kill him if he did not star in a crappy dance movie with the other members of B2K, but not before putting Dexter in the uncomfortable situation of having to get a summer job to pay for the damage done to his car. After being fired from Mondo Burger, he is offered a job at Good Burger (God, these restaurant names are amazing!) with the help of soon-to-be best friend Ed, at which point the antics ensue. The plot is great and takes unexpected twists with the two meeting celebrities like George Clinton in an insane asylum and everyone’s favorite basketball player, Shaq.
The plot seems to be designed to show off the comedic skills of the pair and does it well. I found myself laughing almost the entire time, except when Dexter talks to Ed about the relationship with his father, at which I ruffled my eyebrows because it did not seem to fit in with the comedic style of the film but did come around in the end to work because of the heart-felt moment when Ed gives Dexter a yo-yo. The only question that is really left for the audience to ponder is; where the hell are the parents? Dexter mentions briefly that his mom is away and at the start of the film we see Ed in his room but that is all of the home life we see for him. Kel kind of gets screwed over in this movie because if you pay attention, he has to be a complete idiot without so much as a last name or parents, possibly even a high school dropout, and only gets the glory of having some special sauce, plus his career pretty much tanks after this film. So who do you think came out better? …I thought so.
From a technical standpoint, this film isn’t anything special. We get to see some trippy flying hamburgers at the beginning of the movie and a cargo truck jumping from a dirt mound onto a mailbox, but that’s pretty much it. However, this film doesn’t need the technicality of a super artistic director to be great. The film is still amazing because it is so character driven which makes the actors responsible for making the film a huge success which it was. The budget for this film was a “whopping” $9,000,000 and came back with a little over twice that, which ain’t too shabby. The actors did their jobs and were rewarded for it.
In all, I love this film. Not because it is a work of art, but what it meant for me as a child. We all have those movies that remind us of days gone by, and even though other generations will look at them and wonder what the hell is wrong with us; we know that “I’m a dude. He’s a dude. She’s a dude. Hey! We’re all dudes.” And all dudes have their day.
