Good Burger

Starring: Kel Mitchell, Kenan Thompson, Sinbad, Abe Vigoda, Shar Jackson, Dan Schneider, Jan Schweiterman, Linda Cardellini, Shaquille O'Neal, George Clinton, Robert Wuhl, J. August Richards, Carmen Electra
Directed by: Brian Robbins
Rating: PG
Genre: Comedy
1997

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Two teenagers (Kel Mitchell, Kenan Thompson) band together to save the local burger shop from going out of business due to the large, unethical chain that opened across the street.

Review:

Tim: "Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger!" I'll probably hear that line delivered in my sleep. It was interesting watching this movie more than twenty years after it was initially released. By today's standards, so much of this film was absurd and borderline ridiculous. However, it felt better when looking through the lens of the 1990s (which I believe you have to do when watching older movies). This is by no means a good movie- not even close- but it's not a complete failure, either.

Like a lot of movies in the 1990s, this film was targeted to a young demographic and took the approach of delivering a lowest common denominator movie. There's no subtlety in this film. Everything is over-the-top, ratcheted up to the highest levels. It's a comedy, but great comedy requires small, quiet moments in addition to the loud ones. This film never got that memo. The zaniness of the film is often cartoonish, which makes it hard to take anything seriously in the film. This movie is based on a sketch from the television show, "All That". I vaguely remember watching that show on occasion- I don't remember loving it. This movie suffers from the same issues that Saturday Night Live movies do- you take a sketch that works for a few minutes and you stretch it to feature film length and it doesn't work. There's not enough depth to the characters, there's not a compelling enough story to support an entire film. That happens here. Sure, the cast is rounded out, there's a cartoonish antagonist involved, but ultimately, the movie runs out of ideas far before the run time ends.

One of the highlights of the film is the pairing of Kel Mitchell and Kenan Thompson. It's obvious these two had worked closely together. They have a decent amount of chemistry and it appears they had fun making this movie. There's something appealing about these two young actors, having fun and making a movie that they thought was funny. The experiment doesn't quite work, but their enjoyment and energy is a little contagious. It's fun watching them together. The supporting cast was surprisingly good for a film like this. Sinbad's role was fairly meaningless, but he gave a good effort. I always enjoy seeing Abe Vigoda. Linda Cardellini was fun in a small role. I've always enjoyed Robert Wuhl and I appreciated his scene here. Carmen Electra might not be very talented, or an actress, but she wasn't too bad here. She elicited a few laughs in her sequence. As a whole, the cast was better than you'd expect for a goofy movie like this one.

The story is mostly absurd. Sure, there's some nice exploration of the idea of friendship and at least one of the characters (Dexter) has a bit of a character arc. The big, corporate burger place verses the local joint was actually a worthwhile David vs. Goliath aspect of the film. Shoot, even the illegal food chemicals wasn't a bad idea. The issue is that all these worthwhile ideas are taken to the extreme, pushed until they seem utterly ridiculous. I believe you can tell this story in a way that appeals to the same demographic without being so stupid. This movie could have been funny and still somewhat believable.

Good Burger isn't a bad movie, but it's an idiotic one. It's an artifact of the 1990s, wasn't a good movie when it was released, and time hasn't done it any favors. You can absolutely find worse movies- I never hated this one. It's just an average, okay comedy.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6


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