The Stupids

This is one of those movies that nobody wants to see because it looks so stupid. Um, Hello, it's called THE STUPIDS! That is what is so great about this movie, it lives up to its name. It's so stupid that it's hilarious.

The first time I saw this movie I laughed so hard that I cried. In fact, everyone that watched it with me nearly died laughing. It is truly Tom Arnold's shining moment. He is in his element in this movie. It has an atrocious storyline, but it is surprisingly well put together.

This movie takes a big risk, but it is successful in its goal. A Great movie for the whole family to enjoy.

Well guys, sorry to disappoint so many of you, but I thought this was one funny movie. I agree totally with a couple of reviewers who commented that you need to have on the right "mind-set" at the time. You need to have also a sense of the absurd here, if not the insane!

Landis is having a go at everyone and everyTHING in this ode to cinematic oafishness. He gets away with murder here, whereas Brian Levant who persists in trying to offer disastrously unfunny "family comedy" like THE FLINTSTONES simply falls over his own Director's chair.

I just about wet myself the first time I heard Arnold break out into his musical monologue "I AM MY OWN GRANDPA" That has to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen on the big screen. If you can't laugh at that - you're dead...or terminal!

Sure, its not for everyone - neither was SIGNS though!

I can't help but admit that the movie is funny. It's still one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen but it's still funny. My favorite scene is when Tom Arnold is trying to hide as a bush and decides to hide as a bush he must think like a bush. He then becomes amazed that he is the first bush in history that can walk and talk. Idiotic? Sure, but it worked.

Come on people! Relax. If you rate this movie a 1, you either are trying to hate it or don't have a sense of humor.

It's not high art, but the deadpan acting is spot on, and if you really look at it, the writing in this script is far more complex and well crafted than most "gross out" comedies people seem to applaud.

While other comedies just string together some non-sequeters, this one has a tightly woven throughline, with one line of dialogue or action not only leading to the next, but so integral to the story that if you were to remove a gag or a character, the house of cards would collapse.

It is theater of the absurd and farce at it a high level.

And it is telling that some people who say this is the worst movie ever also say the Kentucky Fried Movie was a "miss" despite that film being the first of it's kind and leading to hundreds of films since that these same people probably loved.

This is probably the only film I've seen where the IMDb reviews on both sides of the spectrum are 100% accurate. "The Stupids" is an atrocious, dim-witted film with absolutely no artistic merit whatsoever, and is a denigration to a director like John Landis. And that's what makes it great.

In order to appreciate "The Stupids", you have to keep in mind a little-known, but very true maxim spoken by director Abo Kyrou: "I urge you to learn to look at bad films, they are so often sublime." In order for any film to work, the film must establish and follow it's own logic, and if it does so convincingly and sincerely, then it's actually possible for the film to work. For example, when you watch "Freddy Got Fingered" as a traditional gross-out comedy, it's complete and utter garbage; when you watch it with the understanding that it's actually a neo-surrealist comedy, it's brilliant.

It works with good movies too. If "Jaws" hadn't accepted the reality it created, the air-tank explosion ending wouldn't have worked. But, a lot of people think "Jaws" is vastly overrated for this type of reason, and they aren't wrong. But it has it's strengths, doesn't it? The point being that a movie like this makes sense if you look at it with the right perspective. Some people, like me, get it right away, while others never will no matter how often it's explained. Jim Jarmusch made a compelling defense of "Showgirls" once, and even afterwards I still can't see it from his P.O.V. Doesn't mean he's wrong though. If you have the right frame of mind when you watch this movie (and NO I DO NOT MEAN STONED, I'm gonna put that to bed right now), you can actually enjoy the movie for the dumb, cheap, pointless slapstick late-80s/early-90s-style farce that it is.

The defenders and haters of this film are right: It's STUPID, and that's the point. The movie accepts the stupidity of the characters much in the same way "The Jerk" accepted Navin Johnson's idiocy. And because it takes that and runs with it, the movie focuses exclusively on using that to forward the plot and to define the characters. A "bad" movie would actually do this and fail to use that logic properly; bad movie are bad because they make it up as they go along, whereas movies like "The Stupids" knows where it's going, what it's doing and why from the beginning.

I can't defend the film from an artistic standpoint, which is why I give it such a low rating. The acting is mostly bad, the jokes very superficial, and the live-action quality probably ruins what would have worked as a cartoon. But I can't deny that it IS entertaining in its own way, and that's why I defend it. I got it right away, and I pity those who don't.

I'll admit I was drawn to this movie because of Christopher Lee's delicious cameo appearance (hearing him say "Release the drive bee!" would have been worth the rental price even if I hated this film), but was amazed to find that, aside from the TV Studio Applause Sign segment with Jenny McCarthy, I was never bored, and never disappointed. In fact, many of the jokes, because of their cartoonish context, were hilarious (in particular the airbag-cigarette explosion). They were dumb, but they were funny. And the movie doesn't pretend to be anything else: a STUPID comedy about STUPID characters and instead of apologizing for it, it enjoys itself.

And that's exactly why it works.