"LarryBoy and the Angry Eyebrows" Movie Review

Hi, I'm the Amateur Critic. I review just about anything.

You'd think Big Idea would make a feature film on our cucumber superhero. But instead, Big Idea gave us Jonah: A Veggietales Movie. (Which reminds me... I'm not doing a review on Jonah, because one, it's so overrated; and two, the whole movie is self-explanatory.) Anyway, most Big Idea fans were disappointed, because LarryBoy was so successful in the Rumor Weed episode; in fact, it was promoted greatly in 1999 when it was released. Somehow, Big Idea saw this and wondered how they could bring LarryBoy back. And boy, how they shocked us…

         Years later, Big Idea finally gave us LarryBoy the Cartoon Adventures.

This show tried to cash in on the 2D-animation cartoon style- like Saturday morning cartoons. I had no problem watching this show. Let’s talk about the debut episode LarryBoy and the Angry Eyebrows.

         This was the first LarryBoy episode that I ever saw in my life. My interest in LarryBoy started with this episode. I remember seeing this movie when I was 10 (nearly 11). As an adult, I see have no problem watching this; but now that I'm old enough to know better, I can honestly say that this movie has its flaws. It's very cliched, weird, and childish.

         So, without further ado, let's dive in. I got half an hour to waste... so let's take a look.

 

Intro:

 

We start off with a fast-paced opening where LarryBoy suits up and tracks down a shady bad guy throughout the whole song.
-Who is the shady bad guy? Nobody knows. Will he make an appearance in this or in any other LarryBoy adventure? No. The creators just added that character to emphasize LarryBoy's heroics. I wonder what the producers do after they use the shady bad guy that gets only a few seconds of fame in this intro...
-This clearly means that he's unstoppable and that he's heroic, but the intro feels like a Spongebob intro, since its fast-paced.

 

Park Scene:

 

We then cut to where the story really begins, as the narrator explains what's going on.
-Really? We went from not having a narrator in the LarryBoy shows to actually having one? So, who did you get to narrate your show?
(No one knows…)
Well, not that it matters, because the narrator has little to no involvement outside of narrating.

         We see a peaceful community in the park, until disaster strikes. There's screaming and running involved. What are the people running from? Why did the lady run off with her kids?

-Well, it must be either a terrorist person or a monster in the park.
(A monster.)
Oh, a monster? Let me guess: the Fib, or is it the Rumor Weed back for revenge? Or maybe a man-eating monster.
Lady: "It's the Cheese-Grazing Cow Dragon!"
Okay, fair enough. I bet this monster looks blood-thirsty and God-awful...

(viewing the monster)
What? Wait a minute! It's just a costume operated by someone demented! And, what's that? It throws cheese at people! Wow, this must be some ghetto monster! They're not even trying!

         But before this... cow dragon... can do anymore damage, LarryBoy swings by and squares off with the monster.

 

-Now, I bet LarryBoy would kick this monster's butt...

(LarryBoy is hit by cheese)

Ah, come on! It's just cheese! What, is the cheese made out of lead?!

         Then LarryBoy's butler Archie tells him to use a spatula to fight off the bovine.

-You heard right. He uses a spatula to fight off a cheese-wielding monster.

         The plan works, and LarryBoy captures the cow dragon, only to find out that it was (in fact) a costume manned by a couple of bums that just wanted to snack on other people's picnic.

 

-Here's my question: why don't the guys eat the cheese, instead of shoot them at the people?
LarryBoy: "Why don't you just eat the cheese, instead of shooting it at people?"
(I smack my forehead.)

         So the duo gets busted, and then there's this cliched moment where LarryBoy does a heroic pose.

 

Villain's Lair Scene:
We then cut to someone spying on our hero. We're introduced to our main villain.

 

-The scenery seems so intriguing. I wonder who this bad guy's name is. Perhaps this guy's name is symbolic like the Mad Guy, or King Anger, or...

Awful Alvin

Sounds kind of bland, but okay...

         Awful Alvin then introduces us to his partner-in-crime.

-Despite the name of this guy, there must be something special about him... What does he have? A set of strong henchmen? An army of minions that do his evil bidding without question...?

(His henchmen is a floor lamp with a smiley face drawn onto its shade.)
-You heard right. (I'm gonna be saying that phrase throughout this review. So, I'll just abbreviate it like this: YHR) It's a friggin' lamp! What, was getting henchmen and minions too expensive?

         Then we get this obnoxious scene where Awful Alvin does this "dance of villainy."

 

-Good Lord, this is too painful to watch.
-But hey! Isn't the bad guy going to explain why or how he wants revenge on LarryBoy? Well, Awful Alvin, now is your chance to explain your evil deeds! Nothing? Nothing at all? You're just going to keep dancing for no apparent reason? Okay, we'll have to wait until a couple of scenes later, I guess...

 

Daily Bumble scene:

 

Meanwhile, at an obvious rip-off of Superman's newspaper building called the Daily Bubble, Larry the cucumber works as a janitor.

-Why a janitor? Well, that would be explained later on, I promise you.

         The newspaper staff is trying to figure out what to put on the front page besides LarryBoy saving people from the 100%-not-real cow dragon.

Their cub reporter Junior suggests giving the front page to an old mushroom lady that invented a device that can turn bath tub-drained hair into knitted hats. But Bob shuts down that idea immediately.

-Yeah. If I was the editor-in-chief of that place, then I would say the same thing. In fact, that invention is a stupid idea.

         Just then, Larry's mop rings.

-YHR. Larry's mop rings. Did he hide his cell phone in the strands, because he didn't want to leave it in the break room?

         Larry rushes into his janitor closet and puts the mop on his head.

 

-YHR. Yeah, he puts on the mop on his head. Did his cell phone get tangled up in the mop?

         It turns out that this mop has a video phone in the strands.

-But still, doesn't he know that the mop's germs can give you pink-eye and shit?

         The video phone clicks on and Archie appears.

Larry finds this the perfect time to complain about his job. Archie tells him that working at the Daily Bumble helps them to know when crime is happening. And why a janitor, Larry asks. The answer will be revealed in 3... 2... 1...

Archie: "Well, it was the only job that you were qualified for."
-Yeah, it sucks to have a job that nobody wants. I know what that's like; believe me; I've been in the cleaning business myself, and it was hard. But hey, that was then, this is now.

         Then Archie reminds him about superhero class at a community college.

-A superhero class? How did I miss that class growing up?

         After talking with Archie, Larry steps out of the closet (not in a gay way) and... let's just say that he coincidentally bumps into the old mushroom's invention, and the invention coincidentally breaks.

This gets the old lady mad at him, and she demands that he get it fixed. This comes to a disappointment to Janitor Larry.

 

-Bitch alert! Old lady off her rocker, because her invention was accidentally broken! Run for your lives! Hide your family! I mean, come on! She's overreacting!
-Now, before I go even farther in this review, I gotta say that this movie feels like a Mad Libs game, where the creators and writers were making things up as they go.

Ex. LarryBoy fights the cheese-throwing cow dragon with his [noun, object].

Answer: Spatula

Ex. Awful Alvin's henchman is a [noun, object].

Answer: Lamp

Ex. Old lady's machine turns [noun, object] from bathtub drains into hats.

Answer: Hair

Ex. Larry contacts Archie with his [noun, object].
Answer: Mop
What, did the writers run out of ideas at one point and just spat out whatever’s on the top of their heads?

 Villain's Lair Scene 2:

We then cut to Awful Alvin revealing his diabolical plan.

-It's about friggin' time, if you ask me...

         He pulls back the curtain, revealing a cage with... eyebrows that think they're bats.

-Okay. So we have another Mad Lib:
Ex. Awful Alvin has a cage of a swarm of [plural noun, body part].
Answer: Eyebrows

         Alvin explains that whenever someone gets mad, these eyebrows stick to their forehead, and then the victim would be a slave to their anger.

-You know, this evil plan seems well thought out. But I have a feeling that this part is still missing a few things. In fact, I caught some plot holes in this scene:
1. How did you create these eyebrows?
2. How did you tame these eyebrows? (DID you tame them?)

         So Alvin releases the little hairy bastards and then... rips off Wizard of Oz by telling the eyebrows to "seek out anger."

Superhero class scene:

 

We then see this superhero class, that is taught by... the guy from "Karate Kid" that was reincarnated as a Chinese cabbage. LarryBoy pays no attention in class, because he's distracted by the superhero name of the person sitting next to him.

-YHR. You'd think LarryBoy would be distracted by a cell phone or listening to music. But no, he's talking to the guy next to him about redundancy.
LarryBoy: "Scarlet Tomato. RED tomato..."
So, for this scene, go ahead and get more popcorn and drinks, because the next couple of minutes is nothing but this. But if you want to know what lesson is trying to get across here, just look at the last 10-15 seconds of this scene.

Town scene:

 

We see the crazy mushroom lady come out of a building, still as mad as hell from yesterday's incident. One eyebrow finds her, and she becomes the first victim to the Angry Eyebrows.

Then, one by one, people start falling victim to the eyebrows; and then sooner or later, everyone is angry.

         Awful Alvin happily watches the town go into mayhem through his telescope.

 

-How the hell did he get up there?
-He even brought Lampy with him. It's like he's friggin' four! Just ask him: Are you a kid? This guy has no manhood.

 Daily Bumble scene 2:

 

Larry shows up with the fixed invention, but is ordered to get it out of the room. So he goes to the rooftop to leave it there where Awful Alvin is hiding.

-YHR. You just HAD to leave heavy machinery out in the open! Again, another Mad Lib...
Ex. Larry the Cucumber leaves the machine on a [noun, place].
Answer: Rooftop

         Back inside, the crazy lady, still wearing one of the hairy parasites issued by Awful Alvin, intimidates the newspaper staff and the unsuspecting janitor that COINCIDENTALLY walked in. 

The mushroom sees Larry and threatens him. Larry flees in fear and hides in his closet.

Seconds later, he's able to trap the old sack of terror in his closet.

         Finally, the mop rings, and Larry runs into the men's room to answer it.

 

-(Laughing) Who talks on the phone while they're on the toilet? Archie must be like: Master Larry! Get out of the bathroom stall. I can see your junk!

         Anyway, Archie tells Larry about the infestation of Angry Eyebrows.

 

-Look at the footage. They just show one clip of the "infestation," and that's it. Why not tell Larry to look out the window?

         Archie tells Larry use a secret tube to get to the LarryCave to change into LarryBoy. Despite the disappointment, Larry complies.

         Larry goes down a tube, and as soon as he reaches the LarryCave, he crashes into a wall.

 

-No safety procedures. No elastics used. He just crashes into a wall. You'd think he would get seriously hurt by all this.

         Archie, as soon as Larry makes a big and improbable entrance, just ignores that the cucumber is crippled on the wall. Archie just keeps talking as if nothing happened.

-What a jerk.
-And by the way, if you're waiting for Archie to launch into action at any time in this movie outside of sitting in front of his computer screen, don't count on it. Don't expect Archie to do anything else but assist LarryBoy. He doesn't do anything in this movie. All he ever does in this movie is sitting in his stupid chair!

Park scene 2:

All the citizens are mad with Angry Eyebrows. LarryBoy swings by and tries to rip the hairy suckers off the people, but that plan fails.

         Awful Alvin shows his face on a hoover board with Lampy at his side. Alvin tells LarryBoy that he plans to use the eyebrows to control everyone in their anger and that there was no way they could be taken off manually.

         Suddenly, a giant set of eyebrows sweeps LarryBoy off the ground, and then drops him onto the hoover board.

 

-Wait. Giant eyebrows? The eyebrows grabbing LarryBoy...? Flying...? Wait. No. No. You can't get away with that, movie. How is there a giant eyebrows creature? (I guess it didn't fit in the cage with the smaller eyebrows.) Is there a reason why there's a big set of eyebrows in this movie? If you want to add monsters into your movie, go for it. But you have to have a REASON for the monster!

         Anyway, after the... monster... brings LarryBoy closer to the villain, Alvin taunts our hero to see if he can get him mad.

 

-Now, this just a battle of testing one's patience.

         After two lame and silly attempts to get LarryBoy mad...

Alvin decides to roll the dice one last time by saying that he'll have his Angry Eyebrows fill the LarryMobile with chocolate syrup.

 

-YHR. An evil villain that has a city under attack will do the most diabolical thing that he can think of to intimidate our hero...

...fills his car with chocolate syrup. And besides, how the hell did he get all that syrup?

         This apparently gets LarryBoy upset, and an eyebrow sticks onto him to fuel his anger.

 

-Now this scene seemed kind of scary back then, but now I just like to poke fun at it. In fact, which of the following jokes would best fit this scene?
Joke 1: Is he in a growling contest with somebody?
Joke 2: Is that going to be his new Facebook pic?
Joke 3: Guess who's auditioning to be the next Hulk...
Joke 4: All of the above

 Correct answer: None Of The Above. I know; the jokes suck, but at least they're than this scene.

         Awful Alvin thinks he's got his revenge...

-Okay, wait. What did LarryBoy ever do to you to make you want to revenge on him? Did he do something bad to, Alvin? Explain, movie!

         Anyway, Alvin thinks he's won, but then LarryBoy remembers the lesson that he got distracted on.

 

-YHR.

He just magically gets this in his mind, and remembers a lesson in school that he had spent jacking off in... Sounds hard to believe, but okay...

         LarryBoy then gives a big speech to Alvin about letting go of anger, and the eyebrow flies off him. The people in town see this, and they do the same by letting go of their anger.

         But Awful Alvin isn't ready to throw in the towel. He sends the eyebrows to attack LarryBoy. LarryBoy flees to the top of the Daily Bumble, where the mushroom lady's machine is still sitting there waiting.

This is where LarryBoy coincidentally leads the eyebrows into the machine, where they're knitted into a giant nightcap. Alvin sees this and gets mad, which makes the knitted nightcap attack him and capture him in the process.

And what do we get for this scene? A one-liner:

LarryBoy: "The nightcap is still being attracted to anger."
-Not that any of us gets it...

Last Daily Bumble scene:

 

Larry returns to his janitorial duties to let the crazy lady out of the closet (again, not that anybody is gay in this movie). Larry shows the lady the fixed machine. The lady then gets awarded a medal for unknowingly helping LarryBoy save Bumblyburg from the Angry Eyebrows.

-I don't know. I have a feel that she gets awarded for being a bitch, but I did grass.

         This makes the mushroom happy, and the eyebrows on her face flies away. And everyone lives happily ever after.

 

Short: Fly By Might
I hate this short. Know why? Well, spoiler alert: LarryBoy loses to a fly... miserably.

         Especially the scene where LarryBoy tries to kill the damn fly with his LarryMobile.

(The fly tips over the vehicle)

-Aww, come on! That ain't real! In fact, a fly can't even lift any of my fingers!!!!

 

         So, anyway, that was LarryBoy and the Angry Eyebrows. And that was... gosh, do I really need to say it?

         Basically, this movie was just too fast-paced. In fact, the first 2 installments of LarryBoy had more dignity than this movie. This franchise dumbed up LarryBoy; it tries to look like a Saturday morning cartoon, resulting in sloppy 2D animation; and the plot was missing several things. Plus, the bad guy was just a total nutcase. In fact, the movie cared nothing for its main villain, because they never explain why he became evil in the first place, and what his beef was with LarryBoy.

         But to be fair, this show tried its best to bring back LarryBoy as much as it could, seeing that Jonah stole its way to being a feature-film (again, so overrated). And to be honest, so what if the animation is sloppy? So what if the show is fast-paced? And so what if it’s got problems? For what it is, it's not so bad.

Amateur Critic
Source: LarryBoy and the Angry Eyebrows
All rights go to Big Idea Entertainment

Editorial: Is The Rumor Weed Getting Stronger?

Hi, I'm the Amateur Critic. I review just about anything.

 

Ever since I posted the "LarryBoy and the Rumor Weed" Movie Review, I've been doing a little thinking about how telling rumors still exists. Ever think about that after watching that movie?

In today's world, people can get away with starting rumors easier, thanks to social media. Now, I'm not speaking badly about social media, but I get the feeling that it doesn't do enough to prevent cyberbullying or any other gossip that's posted all over the websites. That not only ruins reputations, but it's also signing away a potential victim's death certificate and spitting on their grave.

In "LarryBoy and the Rumor Weed," the rumor's victim is LarryBoy's butler Alfred, who was well-known in town, and he was helpful to everyone. However, his reputation was in jeopardy when a rumor was started about him. The rumor wasn't started from a Facebook post or from other type of social media. (There was no such thing as Facebook/related social media back then.)

It was started when two kids heard him say that he needed to "recharge his batteries," and then they just assume that he's a robot. The kids didn't know that the phrase was only a figure of speech; they didn't ask him about it, or tell their parents about it- they just made an assumption that would've sealed his fate reputation-wise.

Although this video came out in 1999, the issue that it touches on is still in existence. Yes. Sadly, the starting of rumors has evolved into cyberbullying and lying in the media. This is one of the reasons why the Rumor Weed video seems so underrated, because many people don't take its lesson seriously enough to press "Ctrl+Alt Delete" to a post that's going to hurt someone in the future, or to keep the mouth shut if you don't have anything nice to say about someone.

Another observation from the video was that LarryBoy doesn't technically save the day. He has no power to fully destroy the Rumor Weed. The weed meets her demise when the rumor is counteracted by spread of "nice words," meaning that everyone had to say nice things about Alfred and heal his reputation. So basically, what this video tries to say on that standpoint, it's basically asking you: Do you really need a superhero to know that you shouldn't start rumors or talk bad about someone? Just by knowing that question, everyone should know that starting rumors that can hurt is wrong.

So the big question now is: Is the Rumor Weed getting stronger?

Sadly, in today's world with the social media... she is getting stronger.
You'll hear on the news that a person kills him/herself because they can't take the harshness of the posts on social media being made about them. The more and more we start rumors about people, the more powerful the Rumor Weed gets (metaphorically), and the more broken souls she'll get her vines on. Imagine standing in a crowd near your hall, looking up and watching the person that you talked bad about take their own life in front of you, or signing their soul away to misery. Imagine the victim's blood on your hands due to a stupid rumor about what they're not. Imagine the Rumor Weed stretching her vines to get you and the victim both tangled in this mess. You'd think you'll get away with just one rumor; unfortunately, you'll do it again to someone else or think nothing of this.

It's a good thing that Alfred didn't die in that video, but he still got hurt. It doesn't matter if the victim overcomes or commits suicide, rumors can affect them either way.

So the next time you pick up "LarryBoy and the Rumor Weed" and watch it, think about today's world. Think about who you're hurting when you start rumors about them, and how they and their families will react to the rumors. Think about how you can show the Rumor Weed that you don't want to say bad things about someone.

Amateur Critic
Source: LarryBoy and the Rumor Weed
All rights go to Big Idea Entertainment