fine whine

In the past month I've watched several DVDs from decades past, including The Love bug and Point blank. Those two films aren't necessarily unconnected as they may seem. While Love bug is a jaunty comedy about racing an intelligent Volkswagen and Point blank is about a single-minded thug out for revenge against the organization that took his money (and his wife), they have one sort-of link: Keenan Wynn.

I call it a 'sort-of' connection as he only appears in one of those aforementioned films. He is, however, the villain of the Love bug sequel Herbie rides again*.

Too bad the movie isn't up to par with his abilities, honed though they may be playing the bad guy in other Disney outings. It's a typical sequel, in that everything that was successful or amusing about the first was kicked up several notches and other variations thrown in to really show up the predecessor.

The problem with such an approach (does anybody remember, oh, The Matrix reloaded? Poor souls) is that it often isn't necessary. If the first movie is so good, why then the need for more, bigger, better? I can understand the desire to correct mistakes and improve missteps, but nothing in The Love bug necessitated the jump from one intelligent vehicle to many, from a cable-car to a veritable flock of Beetles.

It is that ragtag bunch of VWs that set the stage for the film's final act that are the tipping point for me. While it is an impressive technical feat to have all of those driverless Bugs, it cheapens the magic of Herbie being this almost-human car. It is one thing for one car to be able to drive itself; it is wholly another for said car to be able to recruit its seemingly ordinary brethren. It's so ridiculous it's not even funny.

Jessica made an interesting point about Stephen King movies with their sentient cars, and it made me recall last week when I watched Maximum overdrive for the nth time. There's a movie that does the self-driving vehicles thing right: any driverless car or truck is fair game (as well as pinball machines, an electric knife, a lawn mower, and vending machines). There's no whimsy, of course, but frankly I'd've rather watched that DVD again than seeing this. Watching Herbie rides again did a disservice to my childhood, as I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it back then. I can but wonder if the subsequent two installments in the Herbie canon were as bad; I hope not.

I'm not in any hurry to rent them, though.

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* Once again I submitted a correction to the AMG synopsis. Isn't it a bit odd to find two mistakes in under a week, without trying at all?

In your synopsis you state, "this, of course, is after Powers angrily pushes Berry off the balcony of a seaside restaurant and into the drink". This, of course, is incorrect. Powers is angry with Berry, yes, but it is not a shove that puts him into the drink but a slap across the face with a boiled lobster. That 'boiled' part is important, or must be, since the characters mention it three times.

Moreover, Nicole is not in fact Mrs. Steinmetz's (Helen Hayes) niece. She calls Steinmetz 'Grandma' but tells Berry she just lived across the street from her. For that matter Berry calls her 'Grandma' later on in the film. Never 'Aunt'.

Also, you never refer to the characters by name, just the actors. In other synopses you do the opposite. Why the inconsistency?

Once again, only time will tell if they are interested in being accurate, or, as I am beginning to suspect, more interested in minimal coverage of every movie in their database, whether it be by rewording the back of the DVD cover or trying hard to remember.