Fat Albert

Review by Jason Gaston

There was a brief moment while watching Fat Albert that I honestly thought the movie was going to surprise me and do something completely unexpected and intelligent. When Fat Albert and the gang end up in the real world to help a girl in need, Dumb Donald finds out that, without a writer to write his life, he doesn't have to be dumb anymore and goes out and reads every book he can get his hands on. Mush Mouth finds out that, with a little practice and patience, he can talk like a normal human being without his strange speech impediment. Old Weird Harold finds out that he isn't clumsy at all and turns into a smooth and suave guy who is dynamite on the basketball court.

But, alas and alack, almost as if this stupid and clichéd movie sensed that something witty was happening in spite of itself, these characters were soon banished back into the cartoon land from whence they came... forgetting all that they learned and reverting back to their old selves.

Kind of odd for a movie that tries to preach a sermon about being yourself... even though it doesn't even allow its own characters that luxury.

But, even if they had gone ahead and allowed this potentially witty subplot to continue, Fat Albert would still be a stupidly predictable, paint-by-numbers, unfunny movie. Honestly, I can't see how this movie would appeal to anyone... not the few remaining fans of Fat Albert and not even kids who don't know any better.

In a way, this movie is almost like the last breath before dying for Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and, I suppose it's only appropriate that the movie ends with Bill Cosby at a graveyard paying his respects to the real Fat Albert. It's like a funeral at the end... one of those funerals where you have to pretend you actually care about the deceased.

This movie is just woefully miscalculated. Fat Albert wants to help a girl with low self-esteem, but at the same time he goes off to date her more attractive sister. Nice move, fatty!

Fat Albert is an icon whose time, like Yellow Kid and Joe Dope, has long sense passed. While this movie had a chance to reinvent him for a new age, it didn't make the effort and, through a series of long and boring situations, made him something decidedly more uncool. It's a shame because Keenan Thompson was a great Fat Albert, but without anything more substantial to work with flab just ain't fab no more.

Besides, with so many fat kids in the United States, nowadays, Fat Albert isn't that special anymore... now he's more like just plain Albert.

Hey, hey, hey... stay away!