La Folie des Figurines Funko Pop

You'd think that the story of a little company that grew from a shared nostalgic interest to a pop culture phenomenon would be a terrific watch...sadly wrong, so sadly. The tone of Making Fun: The Story of Funko is slow and quiet, which is actually fine as the viewer can't help but think that the slow and quiet will build to some emotional or informational climax, but it just stays quiet never quite makes the gut-connection required to make watching this documentary worth the time. Stretches of it are border-line straight-up boring and others are oddly disjointed and not terribly concerned about contributing to a larger narrative. It's actually pretty surprising. The viewer gets plenty of backstory on the Funko company, its origins, its employees and volunteers, its evolution, its fans, its celebrities (as both fans and POP Funko subject matter), its unique and colorful products, its popularity in the collectibles market, and its future aspirations; and it is simply shocking that all of that does not add up to an interesting documentary. They even throw in a story to wrench the heart towards the end, but it feels manipulative and trumped up to justify the time spent on the Funko tale. This could have been so much better.

I am in the target audience for this documentary, as I am a geeky and somewhat childish guy who loves his Funco Wacky Wobblers...and I've had them for years. So, for folks who don't mind the label 'geek', it's an excellent film. I would also add, however, that I wish the documentary had been separated into two films. That's because I loved learning about the history of the company, how they have marketed and how they've grown. But that only makes up about half the film. The other half consists of interviews with the many uber-fans of Funco (many of which are celebrities)...which I enjoyed but which also took away from learning more about this fascinating company. Still, with this reservation, I do recommend you see it...particularly if you are a fan of pop culture...which most of us are.

Funko is an intriguing company with an even more inspiring story. The documentary does not do the story of the company justice. There was no real narrative to the story telling. The transitions from point A to point B were very abrupt and confusing. I spent a lot of time during my viewing trying to understand what was going on because what we had just seen has nothing to do with the following scene. I would love to see a better documentary for this companies story. It felt like someone watched a YouTube video on how to make a documentary, watched half of the video, and said, "I can do that." Fun story, poor execution.

Funko is a well known company these days, but not many know their story or struggle. The people responsible for the popular collectible figures Funko Pops line has a touching story that is nostalgic, fun, and moving. While a documentary on the subject is not appealing to just everybody, the documentary manages to make it entertaining for someone like me who had no previous interest in these collectibles prior to watching it. I have developed an admiration for the companies ideas, philosophy, and overall take on pop culture thanks to this documentary. This is definitely not for everyone, but it is for me.

I'm not a huge funko fan. I have four funko pops, and they're amusing. But, I enjoy toys so I figured I'd watch another toy related documentary.

From the get go the documentary states that this is not about the toys, so I was a bit confused, but OK. It was about the company. Fine.

But as it trailed along it got to be more and more of a comercial ad for the funko brand, and not so much a documentary. And it was actually quite boring as such. Amusing to see the different people they had dug up to represent the fans, but I'm not sure if these were endorsements or examples of actual fans.