While I love international films, classic Hollywood films and all sorts of bizarre films, I also have a love for terrible films--as many of our readers have no doubt noticed. It all started several decades ago when I read Harry Medved's great book "The 50 Worst Movies of All Time". Since finding and seeing all fifty of these movies, I have also attacked IMDb's list of the 100 lowest rated films of all time. However, as this list is ever-changing, I have to re-check the list periodically to see if there are any new additions. Fortunately (or more like UNfortunately) I noticed a new addition to the list...."Foodfight!". However, unlike many of the bad films I have enjoyed for their sheer awfulness and cheese-factor (such as "The Room", "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and "The Apple"), some films are just horrible and offer no enjoyment whatsoever. "Foodfight!" is surely one of these joyless and horrible films.
The story of how this terrible film got made and released is something in itself. While work on the film began in the early 2000s, the hard drives for the film were apparently stolen and work had to begin again! I assume that these folks simply had never heard of the concept of making backup copies. Also, I can only assume someone stole the film in order to save humanity. Unfortunately, work began again--and the original release date in 2003 came and went. Release dates kept changing until eventually the filmmakers were in default on their loans. The film rights were bought at auction for a tiny fraction of the cost to make the film and it was eventually released to DVD only recently.
So why is this film so horrible? Well, the reasons are countless so I'll just concentrate on the major problems. The biggest and most obvious problem is the computer graphics. This CGI film has the ugliest, cheapest and lousiest looking animated film in history. Film students would be ashamed to put their name on this product...it's that bad. Although the work was done in the 2000s, graphically the film is what you would expect in the early to mid 1990s--well before the first "Toy Story" film. Characters are blocky, haphazardly stuck on the backgrounds, have garish colors and are simply ugly. There is NOTHING about them that ever speaks quality in any manner. The same can be said about the backgrounds--which are usually very fuzzy and look worse than an old-school computer game like "MYST".
The dialog is the second worst thing about this 'movie'. While it's clearly aimed at children and stupid people, too much of it is spiked with sexual innuendo to make it appropriate to the children at least. A few choice pieces of their brilliant dialog would include: 'I'd like to butter your muffins' 'Better take it easy on the potato juice before you become chip-faced' '...you have something to say, candy-arse?!' 'I want to scrub your bubbles, Dex' 'What the fudge?!' As for this final comment, it DOES actually sum up the film extremely well!
The story itself is also simply horrible. Some parents might strongly object to the fact that this film is ALL product placement aimed at children--with many of the characters consisting of unappealing corporate knockoff characters that look like McGruff the Crime Dog, Charlie the Tuna and Mr. Clean (among many others). I could also talk about the plot involving the evil Brand X trying to take over the grocery store where all these characters live....but so many other awful things assaulted my senses that I really didn't even care about the insanely bad and cynical plot.
Despite a plethora of B and C-list stars to provide the voices for these unpleasant characters, there just is no reason to see this film for the average person. For fans of dreck, perhaps it's worth seeing...if extremely unpleasant and boring. And, I could also see professors at schools such as Ringling School of Art and Design showing it to their students as an example of the worst animation to be produced since the beginning of time. Otherwise, steer clear of this wretched piece of bile...
The story of how this terrible film got made and released is something in itself. While work on the film began in the early 2000s, the hard drives for the film were apparently stolen and work had to begin again! I assume that these folks simply had never heard of the concept of making backup copies. Also, I can only assume someone stole the film in order to save humanity. Unfortunately, work began again--and the original release date in 2003 came and went. Release dates kept changing until eventually the filmmakers were in default on their loans. The film rights were bought at auction for a tiny fraction of the cost to make the film and it was eventually released to DVD only recently.
So why is this film so horrible? Well, the reasons are countless so I'll just concentrate on the major problems. The biggest and most obvious problem is the computer graphics. This CGI film has the ugliest, cheapest and lousiest looking animated film in history. Film students would be ashamed to put their name on this product...it's that bad. Although the work was done in the 2000s, graphically the film is what you would expect in the early to mid 1990s--well before the first "Toy Story" film. Characters are blocky, haphazardly stuck on the backgrounds, have garish colors and are simply ugly. There is NOTHING about them that ever speaks quality in any manner. The same can be said about the backgrounds--which are usually very fuzzy and look worse than an old-school computer game like "MYST".
The dialog is the second worst thing about this 'movie'. While it's clearly aimed at children and stupid people, too much of it is spiked with sexual innuendo to make it appropriate to the children at least. A few choice pieces of their brilliant dialog would include: 'I'd like to butter your muffins' 'Better take it easy on the potato juice before you become chip-faced' '...you have something to say, candy-arse?!' 'I want to scrub your bubbles, Dex' 'What the fudge?!' As for this final comment, it DOES actually sum up the film extremely well!
The story itself is also simply horrible. Some parents might strongly object to the fact that this film is ALL product placement aimed at children--with many of the characters consisting of unappealing corporate knockoff characters that look like McGruff the Crime Dog, Charlie the Tuna and Mr. Clean (among many others). I could also talk about the plot involving the evil Brand X trying to take over the grocery store where all these characters live....but so many other awful things assaulted my senses that I really didn't even care about the insanely bad and cynical plot.
Despite a plethora of B and C-list stars to provide the voices for these unpleasant characters, there just is no reason to see this film for the average person. For fans of dreck, perhaps it's worth seeing...if extremely unpleasant and boring. And, I could also see professors at schools such as Ringling School of Art and Design showing it to their students as an example of the worst animation to be produced since the beginning of time. Otherwise, steer clear of this wretched piece of bile...