Herbie: Fully Loaded is Disney’s attempt to resurrect the ancient and much-loved Herbie series of films (the first film having been released 39 years ago), which from what I remember seemed to get worse with each successive sequel. I’ve never been a particular fan of Herbie, though the first two films weren’t bad, and I admit that I wouldn’t have watched this out of choice. After being dragged to see it my verdict is that it wasn’t awful… it just wasn’t’ actually good.

Herbie is, of course, a Volkswagen Beetle with, quite literally, a mind of its own. In previous films it’s won all sorts of races in unlikely circumstances, but its (his?) main function seems to have been to help people realise their dreams. This film is no exception to that rule, but at the beginning of the film, poor old Herb is about to be scrapped… then along comes…

Lindsay Lohan, playing race-mad Maggie Payton, whose father (played by Michael Keaton) has the interesting view that because she crashed once and he can’t bear to lose her, while her brother has crashed repeatedly trying to qualify for the NASCAR championships and dad couldn’t seem to car less. Maggie is depressingly stupid, as is her father. (At least the brother just keeps crashing…) Well as you may have guessed, Herbie comes into her life and brings racing with it, especially after she inadvertently offends reigning NASCAR champion Trip Murphy (Matt Dillon) into a challenge race – and, of course, beats him. As you will also expect, Trip Murhpy is eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil, in fact I’m not sure why Director Angela Robinson didn’t just tattoo “Good” or “Evil” on the characters’ heads. It’s all excessively obvious and I’d be seriously worried about you if you couldn’t predict 90% of the plot by the end of the first 10 minutes. As far as the plot goes then, it’s very much done with pre-teens in mind, and very young pre-teens at that.

Disappointingly, all of the humour is also aimed at that age group. (We’re probably talking 4-8 year old children here, even 10 year olds would probably be looking for a bit more sophistication in a film.) Thankfully, some of it is funny, and some bits are (I think) unintentionally funny. Some of the stunts performed by the little VW are quite hilarious, and they’re really the only thing that saved this from a 2 star rating for me. Maggie’s love interest Kevin (Justin Long) gets a few amusing lines and I probably liked his performance most out of all the cast. (Although he didn’t have much to do, I also enjoyed Breckin Meyer’s performance as Maggie’s brother Ray.) Lohan isn’t too bad, playing her “well intentioned but slightly stupid yet attractive so gets away with it” girl-next-door role quite well. Occasionally she wore an implausibly short mini skirt that presumably was put there for the sole purpose of giving older brothers something to look at while they unwillingly sat at the cinema with their younger siblings. Keaton probably wondered what he was doing in this film after a while and it does show somewhat. The ancillary cast were fine as far as it went. Dillon did appear to have quite a bit of fun in his extremely OTT baddie, and the kids will love to hate him. Jimmi Simpson is quite scary (in more ways than one) in his role as “Crash”, Murphy’s main henchman. NASCAR fans will see many familiar faces with drivers playing themselves in the final race.

There was precious little of the famous Herbie music we all know and some of us love. There were some cracking songs in the soundtrack (“Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf, “Jump” by Van Halen, “Walking on Sunshine” by Aly & A.J., and “Getcha Back” by the Beach Boys), but somehow they just didn’t seem to fit in with the movie. Lohan only sings one song, and for that, perhaps, we can be thankful. The effects are ok, nothing spectacular by any means but they get the job done. If memory serves, Herbie is a little more expressive in this than in previous movies, with moving headlights for eyes and a flexible bumper (fender to you guys overseas! :-D) for sort of facial expressions. Again though, it’s the ridiculous stunts the car does that had my laughing.

Okay so it’s a kids film, and for very young children there’s nothing wrong with it. They’ll have no difficulty grasping the plot, they’ll enjoy the humour, and of course we’ve got a mushy ending they’ll be happy with. For adults though, and / or for older fans of the Herbie films, I can’t think of much to recommend it. That is, however, from an adult perspective – it’s a great choice for children under ten.

Related Links

The only other film I’ve seen Lindsay Lohan in to date is Freaky Friday, which I actually enjoyed quite a bit.

Justin Long also appeared in Galaxy Quest.


_-*********-_

See Also

Top Ten Films of 2005

-_*********_-


Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8