A Goofy Movie

Voices of: Bill Farmer, Jason Marsden, Jim Cummings, Kellie Martin, Rob Paulsen, Wallace Shawn, Frank Welker, Joey Lawrence, Pauly Shore
Directed by: Kevin Lima
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Rating: G
1995

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Max (Jason Marsden) reluctantly embarks on vacation with his dad, Goofy (Bill Farmer).

Review:

Tim: I'm not sure who thought A Goofy Movie would be a good idea, but I'm here to tell you it's not. The very idea of the movie seems absurd to me- Let's take a supporting character who is best in small doses, give him his own movie where he and his teenage son spend almost the entire movie fighting. It'll have it all- moody teenagers! Family dysfunction! A horrible road trip we're stuck on with the main characters! Suffice to say, I wasn't a fan of this movie. Even at a short 1 hour, 18 minutes, the film seemed to drag on forever. It took us multiple days to finish the movie and my kids weren't interested at all.

I kind of jest about this, but everything I said is true. I tried to adjust my thinking for the time period in which this came out. The 1990s were a different time and some of the worst excesses of this decade show up here. Even trying to put myself in that frame of mind, I still didn't find much to like about the movie. The story is predictable, you know exactly how it'll turn out. The problem is that it's such an unenjoyable journey to get there. Goofy is a completely clueless dad. Max is a self-entitled teenager who's pretty mean most of the movie. Pete is completely disconnected from reality. I mean, why should we care about any of these characters? The story is told, but the question is, "Did we even need this story?" and "Why is this story worth telling?" The answer is it mostly isn't.

Now, if you can see past the myriad annoying things about this movie, I suppose it eventually does get to a worthwhile message. It's a story about fathers trying to connect with their teenage sons, something that is obviously difficult. I guess there's some life lessons to be had about trying to meet in the middle, to see things from the other person's point of view. I don't know, I'm probably reaching a bit.

There were a few decent moments throughout the film. I thought the Bigfoot sequence was fun. It was completely irrelevant to the main story, but it was at least interesting. Max's initial play thing was kind of entertaining. The film's big conclusion was mostly ridiculous, but might have had a few solid moments.

I suppose this isn't the worst movie, I'm trying to give the film a fair shake. However, in the catalogue of Disney movies, this absolutely ranks towards the bottom. There's worse films, yes, but there's so little that is enjoyable or memorable about this film. I didn't have fun watching the movie and it was a struggle to get through it. It was likely a bit too old for my kids (6 and 3), but they certainly didn't like the film at all. My son kept commenting on how mean Max was.

There was probably a story that felt more appropriate for A Goofy Movie. This movie isn't all that goofy. It's annoying and vaguely depressing. It's an absolute failure when you consider what it could have been.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 5.5


If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: An Extremely Goofy Movie