To Catch a Yeti

Folks, I am a movie buff. Not just that, I am a BAD MOVIE buff. And a Tolkien nerd. Therefore, few are as worthy to comment on this movie as me, Captain Worthy-riffic.

This is the single worst piece of art ever.

I have seen 'The Stupids'. I have the scene where Christopher Lee says 'Release the Drive Bee' on my computer. I have graphed Costner's slow decline into the abyss. My Jamaican roommate and I have had many discussions into the actual net-worth of Billy Baldwin, and found that we could pawn him on the black market for several Eagles, if both the Eagles and the Eagle-seller didn't know what a movie was. But we can all agree, there is not a work in humanity worse than 'To Catch a Yeti'.

Granted, it tries hard, although I have assumed it was made by a sadistic epileptic ferret, the only explanation. I can forgive the fact that you can see the strings controlling the Yeti, which was almost certainly bought in the discount bin at K-Mart. I can forgive the fact that you can see the outline of a city building in the background of the scenes where the explorers are in the Tibetan mountains. And I can forgive the fact that I am considering dropping out as an English major, because any language that can take it up the tailpipe with dialogue like this probably won't survive much longer.

BUT I CAN"T FORGIVE THE HALF AN HOUR WHERE THE HUSBAND OF THE HOME ON ANY-STREET USA BERATES HIS FAMILY BECAUSE HE THINKS THEY STOLE HIS PUMPKIN PIE. MAY DEATH FIND THIS MAN SLOWY, PAINFULLY, AND PREFERABLY IN THE TALONS OF A MAJESTIC EAGLE.

Remember Folks,

Do not meddle, In the affairs of Dragons. For you are crunchy, And taste good with catsup.

TO CATCH A YETI is an awful kid's adventure film about a baby Yeti that finds itself kidnapped by a pair of hunters and transported to America, where it falls in with your average family and yearns to get back home to the snow again. That's the entire plot of the film, which mainly consists of dumb scenes involving a model Yeti that rips off the look of Gizmo in the GREMLINS movies. Highlights of the film include the Yeti going on a skateboard ride through a local park and being smuggled in somebody's backpack. The animatronic effects are very poor, leaving this looking like a plastic model for the most part.

Even worse are the performances, especially those from a couple of the worst child actors I've seen in a while. A couple of the women seemed to have British accents and if they truly are British actors then I can only apologise for their presence here. Meat Loaf is the most fun actor as the stereotypical villain but even he's poor, just slightly less poor than everything and everyone else around him.

Well... it's a movie. About a yeti. That people are trying to catch.

Strangely enough, the yeti is caught numerous times, so the movie really lives up to that title. In fact, that's about all that happens.

I only just saw this through Rifftrax and even with the boys mocking it, this was really, really bad. This is the kind of movie that really does make you scratch your head and wonder "how did this get greenlit? Who gave this thing a budget? Are those people even allowed to make movies anymore?". I get that not every movie in the 90's had big budgets and fancy effects, but this is just horrid to watch. I keep seeing comments about this being an ET rip-off, but I think they were trying more for bigfoot "Harry and the Henderson's".

Even watching Meatloaf degrade himself in this tripe is painful to watch, like they told him to just "do whatever", but even he didn't seem to have any direction on what he wanted to do. He just doesn't come off as menacing in this movie. For that matter, I was more afraid of him as JB's father in 'The Pick Of Destiny'.

His sidekick, the bumbling idiot aptly named Blubber, just makes you cringe at every line and every move he makes. There are good goofy sidekicks and there are bad goofy sidekicks. Guess where he falls in? It's one of those instances where you want to ask Big Jake why he even keeps the moron around if he just screws up everything. Blubber is the Starscream to Jake's Megatron.

Then there's the "evil" son Wesley. Pretty sure he takes the cake as far as menacing goes. The costume department keeps having him dress up as some Nazi or Russian looking military officer. It honestly reminds me of Cartman from South Park, but done very badly. I wonder if they were trying to do some tounge-in-cheek reference to Wesley Crusher with the repeated "shut up, Wesley" lines, but I don't see a connection.

The rest of the cast is forgettable and wooden, like this movie, so no need to talk further about them.

No yeti's were harmed in the making of this movie, but you'll wish they had been because it's so blatantly obvious that it's just a puppet that I kept expecting Jeff Dunham to show up and shove his hand up its rear and make it talk. I'm assuming they didn't have a budget to get a guy to put a yeti suit on, probably couldn't get permission for it to shoot in the city locations either. They make up some BS about its size to cover up the fact that it's just some mutant-looking mogwai that almost turned into a gremlin, but kept its fur.

Overall, I think the only way to watch this movie is with the Rifftrax dialogue, it at least makes it tolerable.

Amy Bristow (Chantellese Kent) has just found something cute and furry in her bedroom. Guess what? It's a yeti that her father accidentally brought back from Nepal in his backpack. No, not all yetis are giant size, in case you were wondering. Trouble is, there are two men who have also recently returned from climbing the same mountain and they have concluded that the yeti they were chasing has ended up in the Bristow family home. It seems a spoiled rich boy demanded a yeti and his father will pay the trackers a tidy sum for finding one. Can the bad boys manage to get the yeti back? No, this may not be a family movie to rush out and get at once. Still, this viewer found it an enjoyable watch. The actors are attractive and capable, the yeti is sweet looking, and the setting nice. Meat Loaf does a quality job as the main heavy. For those who like the unusual, stumbling across this film at the video store or library would be a good catch for family fun night, complete with popcorn and hot chocolate.

It doesn't get much worse than this folks. To Catch A Yeti is bad in every respect, beginning with the creature itself. The bug-eyed gooning animatronic representing said beast is an insult to cinema, with movement literally restricted to the thing being dragged along, on a poorly disguised sled, through the snow. Similarly the annoying coos which emanate from the Yeti's static plastic face are an annoying as they are bizarre.

Beyond that the production values are below par from children's television, never mind a movie, and its star, one Meat Loaf, though tasked with the difficult job astonishingly manages to be the worst feature in the entire film, proving once and for all that rock music saved many a movie audience from his bewilderingly insensate acting style.

Plot and characters, in as much as they exists, are instantly forgettable, and quite honestly you'll spend the entire film being obsessively irritated by the Yeti. Yes, it really is that lamentable.

Arguably children might get something out of this on a Saturday morning while mom and dad enjoy a lie in, but an enjoyable family film this isn't.