Awful, awful stuff.
I’d love to know who signed the check to finance this film, then again from the looks of things it might have been for $12.87 total.
Chris Elliott gets his first and last headlining role on the back of lucking out with bit parts in Groundhog Day and CB4, admittedly he was OK in both…
But C’mon!
Yet another from a list of “Underrated classics” that has lead me to believe that I was momentarily living in opposite world, Cabin Boy is so bad, so bereft of humour that I actually had to rethink my own taste momentarily. One of us was very wrong, it was either me or the movie.
So I went back 3 days later and tried to watch it again to see if I just totally missed the plot… 10 minutes in and I could take it no longer.
Cabin Boy, it is YOU that is wrong.
Chris Elliott is Nathanial Mayweather, a spoilt brat of a child who is travelling home at the conclusion of his studies to continue being spoilt and wealthy. The first joke is that he is a child with a full beard who is obviously 30 odd, I’ll wait for you to pick yourself up off the floor.
Waiting…
Waiting…
Ready? I know, I can barely hold my sides in too, let’s suck it up and move on.
Nathanial is the heir to a hotel chain, he is a condescending, arrogant punce of a human being who is roundly detested by fellow students and teachers alike, only he scarcely notices or cares as he is too busy being full of himself.
A wrong turn and some even wronger directions providing by David Letterman in a “Why am I here?” monkey selling cameo and Nathanial boards the wrong ship. (There is a real chance that Elliott knew about Letterman’s affairs around the time as he was on his staff, and this was the square up.)
The wrong ship is called the Filthy Whore, and Nathanial awakens to discover it is crewed by old and weathered rough buggers who are on a 3 month fishing trip. Nathanial is hardly distraught at the news he is going the wrong way and simply orders the 5 man crew to turn around at once and take him home. No dice, the crew could give two shits who Nathanial is, and by this stage of the movie you won’t either.
The rest of the film ramps up the so-called “inspired lunacy” and oddball attempts at humour that leave me cold. Nathanial and the crew encounter (in no particular order): a half man / half shark creature, iceberg monsters, a 6 armed blue whore with a giant office-worker husband and giant decapitating nail-clippers.
I’m pretty sure all of that is supposed to be hilarious, and I’d like to think I recognise some funny stuff when I see it.
Here is a brief list of things that might be perceived as non-mainstream or edgy, but which I found funny;
Comedians
Mitch Hedberg
Patton Oswalt
Stephen Wright
Paul F Tompkins
Daniel Tosh
Maria Bamford
Movies
I mean I’m not totally Homer Simpson right? “Jokes, I get jokes! Ha-ha-ha.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt run out of fresh ideas and have to say it again;
- Swearing isn’t necessarily funny.
- Torture, violence and monsters aren’t necessarily scary or horrific.
- Drinking various fluids isn’t necessarily funny.
- Vomiting, flatulence, burping aren’t all necessarily funny.
And let’s add a newbie to the list…
Inserting supposedly oddball and zany plot events in lieu of actual jokes isn’t funny. Even if you think “That schoolboy has a beard and looks 30, that isn’t normal” and chuckle, will you still laugh about it an hour later?
If you think to yourself “Wow they mentioned a half man / half shark, that couldn’t possibly be real. No wait, there he is!” is that humerous to you?
(One last one) “A giant office worker who’s blue 6 armed whore of a wife cheats in him? My what an abstract concept!”
But without jokes they are just weird things to throw in to betray the fact that you are out of real ideas and unable to create humour through dialogue and action.
Final Rating – 4.5 / 10. If you don’t laugh in 80 minutes of screentime can you call a film a comedy? In this case I vote No.
