I wasn’t even going to write a review on this one. I got about half way through this one before I couldn’t take it anymore. Normally, if I decide to complete a review, I will sit through the movie, even if it is the worst, most despicable piece of garbage (I sat all the way through and reviewed the Fat Spy and the Bounty Hunter). However, I can honestly say that the first half of Opposite Day is some of the worst cinema I’ve ever seen, seriously. I’m not going to write a full review of the film, that would be very unfair. Instead I am merely going to give you a brief idea of what this movie is and hopefully persuade you not to waste your time with this trash.
Now, for starters, this is some of the safest, family-friendly stuff you can find. It is utterly harmless to kids, though it may drive some adults to suicide. What I guess is the plot revolves around a scientist played by the extremely annoying French Stewart, who works in an oversized lab working on experiments to make parenting easier, or something. Some sort of machine he and his assistant are working on is supposed to make it possible to communicate with babies. Meanwhile, two kids go stay with their grandparents at a cabin in the woods but mom and dad don’t go because (SHOCKER!) dad has to work. Yep! It’s that one again. The absentee father is a common device used in these sorts of films because it gives the film an easy conclusion because all that needs to be done to close the story is to redeem the father in the eyes of his family.
Anyway, so dad, played by Pauly Shore (AHHHHH!!!) stays behind with mom. While the kids are in the woods, an experiment goes awry back at the lab and a strange gas is launched into the air. The next day, when the kids and the grandparents arrive back home, all the kids are acting like adults and all the adults are acting like kids (HOW ZANY!). After grandma and grandpa are arrested by a ten-year-old (for, of all things, underage driving), the kids sitting in the back escape. The son is enthusiastic about being in charge of the adults while the little girl is a little more tentative.
This is about the point where I killed this movie. I know I didn’t give it a chance, but I cannot describe how bad this was. In the first hour, the film replays this same pop song (I guess it’s called “Opposite Day”; clever.) over and over and it is ringing in my ears. The good news is it got that freaking “Friday” song out of my head, the bad news is now it’s in my head and “Friday” is playing over it at equal volume because writing about it drew it from the depths of my psyche. On top of that, this is one of those movies that opens with a montage of the “perfect town” you used to see in a lot of these films until Pleasantville ruined that cliché by taking it, turning it on its head, and using it as a clever allegory for society. This film is a clever allegory for getting beaten to death with a flaming stick while writhing in a kiddy pool filled with plague-ridden rats, tarantulas and Egyptian asps.
Now if you don‘t know who Pauly Shore is, he is an exceptionally untalented performer who, in the 90‘s, appeared in several comedies with some rising stars. He channeled the same character in every film and went strong for a while until Bio Dome sunk his big screen career, he retired to scant bit appearances on TV and in some small, straight-to-DVD films like this one. The worst part is, he was only in the part of the movie that I saw for a few minutes and he was giving the BEST performance!
This is the most bubbly, hyper, silly, and badly acted mess I’ve watched in a while. It has the tone of an episode of Saved By the Bell topped with a gentle drizzle of the Partridge Family, and it lacks any character. So it is basically a movie designed to sucker unwitting parents into looking at the gentle PG rating and deciding it’s worth watching with their kids. What I saw of this movie is awful, and even though I didn’t finish this crap, I felt I needed to warn people about it.
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