Fat Albert (2004)

Today I saw a free preview of "Fat Albert" in a Manhattan theater, and braved the morning cold to make sure I got in. It was well worth it! Let's face it, this movie could have been total crap, with what Hollywood's record is with both remakes and TV-to-film adaptations. But "Fat Albert" succeeds on so many levels, it's amazing a film this good can even be made in 2004.

Before I hit on the positives, I will go over a few of the negatives. When the Fat Albert gang are in cartoon form, they seem to be drawn "nicer" as not to offend, and their voices are much different than what old-schoolers remember. Dumb Donald's voice is no longer the screechy highpitched type, Russel's voice is nothing like it was, and Mushmouth especially sounds different. Sure he is still Mushmouth but he sounds like someone making a very bad Mushmouth imitation.

But there are so many positives that make you forget any of that stuff. The film is a sweet tale of the gang coming out of a girl's TV set and into "real earth" to help her with her problems. The well-meaning gang gets into a lot of crazy and zany situations but always seem to win over the crowd, except for the bad guy, who likes the same girl Fat Albert likes. This girl, incidentally, is the half-sister of the girl the gang has come to help, and she is incredibly hot, a cross between Jennifer Lopez and Halle Berry, always wearing sexy clothes and looking great but of course, she is a sweetheart.

There are some brief scenes of how the gang is amazed at modern technology (they do come from the 70's after all, although that decade is never directly mentioned) but thankfully the film doesn't waste time on many gags like that. The gang itself, well the actors do indeed do a decent imitation of the gang, having their looks, mannerisms and even their walks down to some degree. But above and beyond the field is the dude who plays Fat Albert, seemingly a perfect choice, a great performance where he's obviously having fun.

The film is a great family film and there are no silly "adult jokes" that will fly over the kid's heads, it's all good clean fun. probably the only thing "racy" at all is the hot girl Fat Albert has a thing for, she is always dressing sexy and looks amazing throughout the entire picture. The camera always seems to manage to catch her perfect body and tight, trim figure, and While she is there to keep dad watching and paying attention, everyone else will enjoy the film, although especially if dad watched Fat Albert 30 years ago, there's no reason why he can't enjoy it for what it is too.

The ending is a great heart-tugger and not the predictable ending you may have expected. The film does try to be a little bit "today" by making Fat Albert and the gang sing and dance to a hip-hop version of their theme song ("Gonna Have A Good Time") as they take over a hip-hop party, but even that is done so well you really won't mind.

This is an extremely enjoyable film with laughs galore. Probably the biggest laughs were when Fat Albert races the bad guy on the school track (a take on how fast he always managed to run in the cartoon), and every time Mushmouth says something. Yep, even in these extremely politically-correct times, a jam-packed theater can still crack up at a kid's speech impediment when given the chance. Well, it's Mushmouth, 30 years ago we all laughed, so why not now? My advice is to forget overblown crap like "The Polar Express" and take your kids to see this film, which will be loved by millions of kids and adults alike, no doubt.