Ever since I saw the trailer for “Little Man”, I desperately wanted to see the movie. It looked absolutely hilarious to me. Unfortunately, it seemed as if most of my family thought the movie looked horribly stupid...which I can understand. Little Man looked incredibly dumb, but the trailer always managed to make me burst out laughing, so me and a bunch of friends went out to see it. I can assume most people will hate Little Man and probably a few people will drop off my web of trust after reading my 4 star review of it, but Little Man was hilarious. Yes, the humor is immature and stupid, but it is still funny and while most people will hate it and bash it as a immature dumb Wayans Brothers movie, it has to be the best comedy I’ve seen in theatres so far this year.

Little Man starts off with Calvin being let out of prison. Calvin is a mastermind criminal who happens to be incredibly small, “vertically challenged” as the ad describes it. Calvin meets up with his partner in crime, Percy, and they set out to steal a diamond. They have been hired by a mob boss to steal the diamond. Calvin manages to get a hold of the diamond, but is pursued by the police. He drops the diamond in a couple’s purse and manages to evade the police.

The couple, Darryl and Vanessa, head home with Calvin following them. Calvin decides the only way to get the diamond is to pose as a baby and be adopted by the couple. When Darryl comes to the door and sees Calvin wearing baby clothes and lying in a basket, he is instantly fooled and decides to adopt Calvin. Vanessa is a little hesitant at first, but soon warms up to adopting Calvin. Unfortunately, Vanessa’s dad, who is living with them for the time being, is very suspicious of Calvin and thinks something is up, vowing to find out what is going on. The rest of the movie consists of Calvin tormenting his parents and trying to retrieve the diamond.

Little Man has possibly one of the dumbest plots for a movie since the Wayan’s last movie, “White Chicks”. The idea that anybody would mistake a midget with a diaper on as a baby is ludicrous, especially after the “baby” demonstrates super strength, has p*bes, and has sexual relations with a full grown lady. The idea is plain dumb and makes no sense. It is also supposedly rip-offed of a old “Bugs Bunny” cartoon, although I’m not sure if this is entirely true. But Little Man’s main concern isn’t having a decent plot; Little Man’s one and only goal is to make people laugh and it doesn’t pay any attention to logic or reason. It requires some suspension of belief, but for me, it was worth it.

Little Man started off extremely unfunny and set a horrible tone for the rest of the movie. The jokes were horrible and not the least bit funny. I started having doubts about whether this would be the hilarious movie I thought it would be. The jokes within the first 10 minutes consisted of Calvin getting knocked over, a gangster singing a song called “Meat shop” (a unfunny parody of Candy Shop), some crazy guy singing more unfunny songs, and two cops chasing after people because they were black, which was also a bit stupid since one of the cops was also black. To say the beginning was kind of unfunny is an understatement, it was actually pretty atrocious.

However once Calvin donned the baby getup, the laughs began to come and I found myself constantly laughing at the hilarious jokes. The jokes were definitely low brow and incredibly stupid, but I enjoyed them, as well as my friends and most of the audience. Most of the best ones were in the trailer, such as one of my favourite sequences, where Calvin has sex with Vanessa. Yes, it was horribly immature and low brow, but it had me bursting with laughter. There were other hilarious scenes, such as Calvin having a thermometer shoved up his a*s (which is similar to a joke in Scary Movie 2), Calvin drinking breast milk accidentally, and Calvin requesting to Vanessa that he wants company in the bath, only to have Darryl strip down, get in the bath with him and begin farting for some reason. It didn’t make much sense, but all those jokes had the audience in stitches. As well, there were some other good jokes too. One where Calvin attacks a hockey player and than is beaten up to a pulp had me nearly at tears; there’s something about a “baby” springing up and latching onto a hockey players ear, only to be thrown against a chair and stomped on that vaguely reminded me of the cheesy horror films I use to watch for laughs before. There were some other good scenes where Calvin was breast fed by a fat lady against his own will and where Calvin played football. It was incredibly dumb and not at all clever, but what matters is that it was funny as hell.

There were a few crummy jokes throughout the movie. Most of them were jokes that didn’t involve Calvin. Such as in the beginning, when “Baby Calvin” was absent, most of the attempts at humor failed. The best jokes were of Calvin trying to deal with all the different things babies are put through, so the other jokes didn’t work as well. Most of Percy’s scenes weren’t very funny as I find nothing funny about a wanna be gangster. I also didn’t find many other scenes devoid of Calvin funny, such as: Molly Shannon’s cameo as a soccer mom, Darryl fighting Percy, a mob boss getting a dirty diaper instead of a diamond, etc, etc. Calvin is the star of this movie and without him it suffers. Fortunately he is in most scenes.

And while Little Man is an incredibly dumb movie, some jokes got a bit too stupid. There were too many jokes that involved guys getting hit in the balls. A few were funny because instead of your regular groin-hit jokes, the joke was that every toy Calvin used ended up hitting Darryl in the balls. Unfortunately, that was the only time a groin-hit was funny in Little Man. There were at least 5 other instances were a man was hit in his genitals and it wasn’t very funny. As well, Calvin beating up people got old and too dumb. It was funny when he first beat up somebody, but by the end when he was fighting mob men “Home Alone” style it had lost all of it’s humor.

The one other thing in Little Man that was actually done extremely well besides the humor is the acting. Little Man has a great cast. Marlon Wayans plays Calvin and his face has been digitally added onto a midget’s body. It was done very well and is hardly noticeable in most sequences. Marlon truly is an amazing comedic actor and he really makes this movie much funnier. Although he doesn’t talk much, Marlon’s facial expressions are up there with other comedic actors such as Jim Carrey and Mike Meyers. Even my sister, who ended up seeing it and hating it, said the one thing she found funny was Calvin’s face. Shawn Wayans plays Darryl and does a decent job. He isn’t that funny, but acts out his part reasonably well. Alex Borstein, who plays Lois on Family Guy, is great in this movie and I thought she was hilarious. There are tons of other great actors within this movie, including Molly Shannon and Rob Schneider, who although only provide cameos, put in very good performances.

When it comes down to it, Little Man is a really dumb movie. It is also one of the funniest movies I’ve seen all year. It isn’t for everybody. Many people are going to despise it. It’s currently in the bottom 100 on IMDb, but it doesn’t take much common sense to figure out most of the people who voted it a 1 didn’t even see the movie, as it was already in the bottom 100 before the movie came out. The critics will obviously hate it and many people will too (i.e. my sister), but all of my friends loved it. The audience was laughing throughout the whole movie and in the end there was even some applause. Little Man is this years “Deuce Bigalow, European Gigolo”; they are very similar since they share the same type of stupid humor and ignore plot. People expecting a well done movie will be disappointed, but people expecting a low brow comedy that will make them laugh will probably enjoy this.


Recommended: Yes

Movie Mood: Funny Movie
Worst Part of this Film: Plot