Stephencjones13

Say you have $40 million to make a movie. You have a great director and a wonderful cast topped off with a great young actor. The story is nothing too big so the $40 mil should cover it. You seem to have the makings for a potential classic. Nothing could go wrong with this, right? Right?

But the movie you'd have would be North. And apparently things did go wrong. Many...many things. Or possibly the only thing that went wrong was the story chosen. The story is about an 11 year old boy named North (now how could a movie NOT be funny with such an unusual name for a character?), played by a pre-Frodo Elijah Woods, who feels his parents are mistreating him because they don't pay attention to him. So he gets a lawyer, who he finds literally chasing an ambulance, haha, and divorces his parents. Now because he's such an overachieving little wretch, letters come pouring in from families who would LOVE to have North as a part of their family.

Bruce Willis plays...well I don't really know WHAT Bruce Willis plays. Whatever he has of a character is too useless to be a guardian angel. He doesn't really DO anything. He first shows up in an Easter Bunny costume (the movie just keeps getting funnier and funnier) and sits next to North in his (North's) secret spot, a chair in the middle of a department store. Now, maybe Alan Zweibel's definition of 'secret' differs from mine, but shouldn't a 'secret spot' be a spot that nobody else knows about? I'm pretty sure at least a couple people noticed that, GASP, there's a chair in the middle of the department store.

Watching North is like receiving a shotgun blast to the crotch, stretched out over 87 minutes, only without as much permanent damage. Some of the people involved have done so many other great movies that I can forgive them for this. However, Alan Zweibel has not only done nothing of note besides this, he wrote the story this movie was based on. The script is the sole reason this movie is bad. It certainly isn't the actors; it's not the director, Rob Reiner. The plot twists, or attempt thereof, are lame, and the final one is just insulting to anybody who has the misfortune of watching this movie.

Avoid this movie at all costs. No matter what is on the other channels or at the video store, nothing is as bad or worse than North.

I cannot, in good concience, place this above Planes, Trains, & Automobiles in the list of John Hughes movies, but I CAN place it just behind it. It's well casted (one person said Nelson looked too old to play a teenager, but his character might have gotten held back a few times), well written, and aside from the end, mostly well acted. The main thing that kills the movie is the EXTREME overacting at the very end. A bunch of High School students crying about having to go along with their friends is just plain unbelievable (NOT believable). Along with that is the scene where everyone whistles (I think it might be from Bridge over the River Kwai), and where Estivez screams and the glass door shatters.

The movie is also easy to watch over and over again. You don't have to sit and really concentrate on it, you can watch it while you're doing other stuff and just concentrate when your favorite part comes up (when Bender crashes through the ceiling), or just sit and watch it.

A lot of people I know wouldn't like this movie, mostly because most of the people I know don't like older movies and think the best movie ever is Rush Hour 2 or whatever movie is out at the moment.

Don't let the negative review convince you not to watch this movie. But don't let me convince you to watch it. This is just my opinion, just like the rest of the reviews. If you've never seen this movie and you were going to watch it, then watch it, enjoy, have a sammich. If you don't think you'd like this movie, then don't watch it. But Rush Hour 2 still sucks.

Why this movie is good is hard to explain. What it's about is even harder to explain. Try, in your mind, to picture Citizen Kane, Fight Club ,and North all rolled up into one funny yet touching Romantic Docudramidy.

Also, you have to be able to read Japanese