DELGO(PG)
* (out of 5)
December 12, 2008
STARRING
Freddie Prinze Jr. as DELGO
Chris Kattan as FILO
Jennifer Love Hewitt as PRINCESS KYLA
Anne Bancroft as SEDESSA
Val Kilmer as BOGARDUS
Malcolm McDowell as RAIUS
Michael Clarke Duncan as ELDER MARLEY
Louis Gossett Jr. as KING ZAHN
Eric Idle as SPIG
Burt Reynolds as DELGO’S FATHER
Kelly Ripa as KURRIN
Studio: Fathom
Directed by: Marc F. Adler & Jason Maurer
BY KEVIN CARR
There is an undeniable truth in film. If the cast is too large or filled with name actors (often many of which are heading down the has-been road), the film is going to suck.
This has been proved time and again by Uwe Boll. Earlier this year, he gave us the atrocious “In the Name of the King” which featured such names as Jason Statham, Burt Reynolds, Ray Liotta, John Rhys-Davies, Matthew Lillard, Leelee Sobieski, Ron Perlman and Claire Forlani.
And once again, it has been proved that a large, diverse and (at least partially) acclaimed cast isn’t going to make a great movie. In fact, it often is an indicator or cinematic garbage. So with one look at the cast list of “Delgo,” which includes Anne Bancroft, Val Kilmer, Louis Gossett Jr. and Eric Idle (along with lame, third-tier actors like Freddie Prinze Jr. in the lead role, no less), it was not a good sign.
Then the studio didn’t screen the movie… and you know what that means. All of these signs should tell you the quality of this flick before you even see one frame of it.
But I bit the bullet and took my kids to see the movie, spending $16 of my hard-earned money to see it on opening day.
What a waste of $16. Heck, if I had seen it for free, I still would have felt ripped off.
The story has the feel of a poorly written children’s novella. There are two races of creatures in a faraway land. These two races have been at odds for years after a traitor to the king tried to commit genocide on one of them. Years later, in the middle of their shaky truce, the traitor tries once again to gain control of the kingdom by kidnapping the princess and framing an innocent man.
Now that CGI animation has become so refined by studios like Pixar and DreamWorks PDI, the competing and independent studios have a lot to live up to. However, “Delgo” excels at nothing. It can’t even fall back on a good story because it’s just a hodge-podge of cliches with scenes that awkwardly fade in and out without tying things together.
The animation is terrible, looking more like a late-90s video game or an after-school cartoon. The character design is almost painful to watch, and they move like rag dolls.
I’ve seen worse movies this year, and I’ve seen worse shows for kids, but this one really tries to sink to their level. Word is that this film has been in development and production for more than five years. Maybe back then, Freddie Prinze Jr. could have saved it. But now, when more people remember him as Fred from “Scooby Doo,” he’s hardly the actor who should be the anchor to the cast.
In fact, this film is so bad, I heard a rumor that it wasn’t even shown to the entire cast before it came out in theaters. Considering how teeth-grindingly bad the movie was, I can believe it.