The ONLY joke appears in the cast list. The father's name is Lance Walters, a play on Walter Lantz, the creator of Woody Woodpecker.
I paid $1100 for my ticket, but it did come with a flight to Rio. I should have slept.
The movie is another fine example of why offering tax credits for making movies is immoral. I feel, as a Canadian taxpayer, as if I personally approved the production of this movie. I didn't. Woody Woodpecker is apparently (and inexplicably) popular in Brazil, to whom this movie is targeted.
I used to watch Woody Woodpecker reruns as a college student. They were a source of ironic laughs because they were pretty crappy ripoffs of Bugs Bunny, but with a singularly unappealing lead character. Where Bugs was a jerk to people who imposed on him, defending his turf from people who wanted to pave over his rabbit hole or eat him or shoot him or whatever, Woody was just a jerk.
This movie gives him a sympathetic cause with a green environmentalist tinge, but it is bereft of any creativity. There is the troubled father son relationship, the bullied kid, every cliche you could possibly imagine. And Woody? He does fart and poop jokes, because the people responsible have no ability to come up with anything the slightest bit interesting. It would be as offensive a treatment of a beloved childhood character as what Jim Carrey did to the Grinch or Mike Meyers did to the Cat in the Hat, except for the fact that the original Woody was never beloved. He was just a jerk. So who cares? Well, the taxpayers of Canada should.
Review of Woody Woodpecker
