Movie Review for Monkeybone

Summary: After falling into a coma following a freak accident, cartoonist Stu Miley becomes trapped in the fantasy land of his own imagination. In this land called Downtown, nestled somewhere between life and death, he must somehow find the means to return to reality. In order to escape Downtown, Stu must outwit Death herself... but the cartoonist's own comic creation, Monkeybone, has come to life, and is intent on wreaking havoc on Stu's plans.

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By Scott Renshaw of Apollo Guide (7/0)
            As id-driven a creation as its title character -- pure, unstructured imagination with a fatally s...

By Marc Savlov of Austin Chronicle (7/0)
            Feels like a movie lost in a tide of brilliant, unrealized ideas.

By Jason Korsner of BBC (7/0)
            This is a film for people with eyes but no brain.

By Lisa Alspector of Chicago Reader (7/0)
            You can almost see money dripping off the walls of the sets and cybersets in this special-effects...

By Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times (7/0)
            The movie labors hard, the special effects are admirable, no expense has been spared, and yet the...

By Karina Montgomery of Cinerina (7/0)
            It's pretty funny. It's absurdist funny, not so much situational as just weird and cool and "yik...

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By Paul Tatara of CNN.com (7/0)
            One of those newfangled production design monstrosities that grabs you by the collar in the first...

By Jeffrey M. Anderson of Combustible Celluloid (7/0)
            The movie doesn't seem to have a purpose other than to fill space.

By Bob Aulert of culturevulture.net (7/0)
            A disjointed and frustrating mess.

By John J. Puccio of DVDTown.com (7/0)
            ...not only a comedy that misfires, it self-destructs and takes the viewer along with it.

By Scott Weinberg of eFilmCritic.com (7/0)
            Sheer laughless agony.

By Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly (7/0)
            There's unwieldy mess -- but there's also unruly brilliance to this dark and funny story.

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By Eric D. Snider of EricDSnider.com (7/0)
            Perhaps Selick was so intent on getting the crazy stuff right, he neglected to look at the mundan...

By Eugene Novikov of Film Blather (7/0)
            There's a special place in my heart for movies that create new worlds for us to inhabit.

By Kevin Lally of Film Journal International (7/0)
            Wildly inventive but woefully unfunny.

By Ron Wells of Film Threat (7/0)
            A largely frustrating 90-minute experience.

By Robert Strohmeyer of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            Lacks as much in the way of creative inspiration as it does in taste.

By MaryAnn Johanson of Flick Filosopher (7/0)
            Not even Fraser's dorky adorableness can salvage this mess of a movie.

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By Rob Vaux of Flipside Movie Emporium (7/0)
            The filmmakers knew the type of movie they wanted to make, [but] their puckish spirit is no match...

By Rick Groen of Globe and Mail (7/0)
            Why do I still have a soft spot for this flick? Because there are glimmers of intelligence in the...

By Eric Lurio of Greenwich Village Gazette (7/0)
            There is genius written all over this flick. Unfortunately, the editing pretty much ruins it.

By Ross Anthony of Hollywood Report Card (7/0)
            Never uninteresting.

By Bruce Westbrook of Houston Chronicle (7/0)
            Most of the movie is grotesque and creepy in the worst way.

By Steve Rhodes of Internet Reviews (7/0)
            Although the images devilishly delight the audience, the script is as dead as the afterlife, call...

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By Steve Rhodes of Internet Reviews (7/0)
            Although the images devilishly delight the audience, the script is as dead as the afterlife, call...

By Liz Braun of Jam! Movies (7/0)
            Derivative, puerile, embarrassing to watch, boring, badly written, filled with leaden dialogue an...

By Louis B. Hobson of Jam! Movies (7/0)
            Distasteful and uninspired.

By JoBlo of JoBlo's Movie Emporium (7/0)
            It doesn't really know what it wants to be.

By Kevin Thomas of Los Angeles Times (7/0)
            An incredible journey of the imagination, darkly humorous and zesty in spirit.

By Mark Dujsik of Mark Reviews Movies (7/0)
            An unfunny movie with small flashes of inspiration that really just turns into a big mess.

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By Matt Easterbrook of Matt's Movie Reviews (7/0)
            Hugely entertaining, and funny beyond belief.

By Mark Ramsey of MovieJuice! (7/0)
            Despite many visually zippy, imaginative moments, Monkeybone is Roger Rabbit redux and ridiculous...

By Jim Chastain of Norman Transcript (7/0)
            Only serious pot smokers stand a reasonable chance of being entertained.

By Jeffrey Westhoff of Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL) (7/0)
            Monkeybone's brief running time suggests the studio attempted to resuscitate its humor in the edi...

By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (7/0)
            A Beetlejuice clone with more grotesquerie but far less mirth ... so strenuous you can almost see...

By Cynthia Fuchs of Philadelphia City Paper (7/0)
            The antics are tedious and the monkey-sex jokes have been PG-ed into raunchy, unfunny piffles.

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By Dustin Putman of rec.arts.movies.reviews (7/0)
            A very bad movie, and amazingly so.

By Pam Grady of Reel.com (7/0)
            Selick's live-action/animation blend eventually triumphs over a script loaded with lowbrow humor ...

By Robin Clifford of Reeling Reviews (7/0)
            It's visual eye candy in the nether world and not much more.

By Betty Jo Tucker of ReelTalk Movie Reviews (6/1)
            Nothing prepared me for the painful experience of watching 'Monkeybone.'

By James Berardinelli of ReelViews (7/0)
            Fun, unpretentious, and well-paced.

By Joe Baltake of Sacramento Bee (7/0)
            Help me! I can feel my brain rotting.

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By Charles Taylor of Salon.com (7/0)
            A giddy madcap classic, one of the wildest and funniest American comedies in years.

By Jean Lowerison of San Diego Metropolitan (7/0)
            If you're interested in craziness, loony looking critters and other people's nightmares, there ar...

By Jim Judy of Screen It! (7/0)
            Effects aside, the film is a near utter failure in nearly every sense of the word.

By Sean Axmaker of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (7/0)
            Selick proves a clumsy director of live-action scenes and never overcomes the muddled, half-baked...

By Rob Blackwelder of SPLICEDWire (7/0)
            Leaning heavily on its low-brow antics and animated effects, the story ... is sloppy, choppy, and...

By Tony Toscano of Talking Pictures (U.S.) (7/0)
            Its cumbersome acting and sloppy script erase its artwork.

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide's Movie Guide (7/0)
            It's wildly visually inventive, and has a surprising edge.

By Urban Cinefile Critics of Urban Cinefile (7/0)
            Nice pictures, shame about the story.

By Susan Wloszczyna of USA Today (7/0)
            Its fondness for fart and genitalia jokes ... proves its downfall.

By Michael O'Sullivan of Washington Post (7/0)
            Is it funny? Fitfully, but not consistently enough.

By A. O. Scott of New York Times (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            A welcome antidote to the epidemic of witless, frenetic, secondhand low comedies that gnaw at our...

By Dave Kehr of Citysearch (3/4) No reference
            A distinctive and disturbing nightmare environment.

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By Jeff Vice of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (6/1) No reference
            Selick appears to be copping Burton's 'vibe' ... and rather unsuccessfully at that.

By Catharine Tunnacliffe of eye WEEKLY (6/1) No reference
            Disaster should have been a foregone conclusion.

By Dave White of IFilm (3/4) No reference
            I was really looking forward to this one. Now, I am sad.

By Bob Strauss of Los Angeles Daily News (3/4) No reference
            Boasts kooky insight into the thought processes, or lack thereof, behind such arrested fantasies.

By Chuck Rudolph of Matinee Magazine (3/4) No reference
            So dreadfully unfunny and unbearably shrill that watching it makes you feel like you’ve been trap...

By Nell Minow of Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies (6/1) No reference
            Fraser is first-rate both as Stu and as the Stu body with Monkey Bone inside.

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By Michael Elliott of Movie Parables (3/4) No reference
            The story quickly becomes tiresome, failing to draw us in.

By John Anderson of Newsday (3/4) No reference
            Too much of everything, a lo mein-stuffed lasagna in banana bechamel sauce. With a coffee malted....

By Blake French of NutzWorld (3/4) No reference
            The filmmaking and creative juices save this otherwise preposterous picture.

By Jay Boyar of Orlando Sentinel (3/4) No reference
            Has so few solid guideposts that this imagery just sort of floats by, never quite managing to bec...

By Philip Booth of Orlando Weekly (3/4) No reference
            A silly, creaky, pop-art contraption that short-changes its serious philosophical and psychologic...

By Jay Stone of Ottawa Citizen (3/4) No reference
            You're never sure whether to feel jangled, confused or simply baffled.

                         Reviews of Monkeybone
By David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews (3/4) No reference
            Monkeybone is kind of like a Tim Burton movie - except it wasn't directed by Tim Burton.

By David Elliott of San Diego Union-Tribune (3/4) No reference
            A 'live-action' fantasy increasingly trapped in a cluttered corner by cartoonish ideas.

By Melanie McFarland of Seattle Times (3/4) No reference
            Black-humor fans will be amply satisfied.

By Dennis Harvey of Variety (3/4) No reference
            The guy can't control his 'monkey,' get it? Heh-heh. Yep, that's the whole concept. Heh. Pretty t...

Movie Distributors
20th Century Fox Distribution

Production Companies
1492 Pictures
Twitching Image Inc

Movie Studios
Twentieth Century Fox Animation
20th Century Fox