A poor kid’s bargain bin movie night: My thoughts on how well these films have aged
Being a child in a lower-income household in the early 2000s, I could be considered an absolute expert on all things “terrible cartoon movies.” My favorite days involved my parents allowing me to dig in Walmart’s $5 movie bin. Or, even better, getting a pirated version of a movie that was good quality, didn’t have subtitles in Russian that you can’t remove ,and didn’t show the people moving around in the movie theater when the pirate was recording the film. To a kid like me, those were the luxuries of life. And for a kid with not a lot, I think I was a kid with some taste. I would dig through the bin endlessly, tossing aside all the obvious rip-offs and money grabs, searching until I found a title that I’d heard my friends mention so I could make sure I was watching the same flicks as everyone else at school. But remember, this is the bargain bin I’m talking about, so the pickings were very slim.
Because of this, I would often be forced to watch sequels of movies that nobody asked for.
My favorite sequel that nobody asked for is Jungle Book 2. I have a confession to make, and it’s embarrassing, so don’t even think about laughing. So, up until the beginning of 2023, I believed that Jungle Book 2 was the Jungle Book, as in, the original and only iteration of the movie there was. Every night, after taking a bath and being forced to eat whatever vegetables my mother put on my plate for dinner, I would pop the VHS into my dinosaur of a television and enjoy. I never understood why, whenever I brought up the movie, the other kids would claim to have seen it but didn’t know the songs I had mentioned or remembered any of the scenes I would talk about. My whole life, I thought people were always lying to me about watching The Jungle Book, not realizing that I seemed like the fraud the entire time.
And like most kids, I wasn’t the best critical thinker. If the movie had some funny jokes and was entertaining enough to be replayed up to a thousand times over the long summer, then it was an instant hit in my eyes. But it wasn’t until I looked at Jungle Book 2’s Rotten Tomatoes score that I realized I needed to go back and watch it again.
Experiencing Jungle Book 2 with the fresh realization that it was a garbage cash grab of a sequel was interesting. Don’t get me wrong: I still think it’s a fun movie, and it holds a special place in my heart. Not to mention the music is pretty great and memorable, despite what others may think. However, I see why it was rated so low by critics. It is literally just a remake of the original Jungle Book. The story holds the exact same structure, the animation a bit of a downgrade and the “W-I-I-I-L-D” animal jazz song in the middle goes on for way too long. The sequel lacks a bit of the substance the first movie had and is definitely a watered-down version of the classic.
And, after rewatching Jungle Book 2, I knew it was time to revisit some of my other childhood favorites to see how they held up. I started with Shark Tale.
I was painfully optimistic about how much I would enjoy Shark Tale on its rewatching. Before I get into the nitty-gritty, let me say this: Shark Tale sucks. Honestly, I could end this entire article right there, but I need about 500 more words, so I’ll elaborate.
There were a few things I was eager to see my reaction to. I wanted to see how well the animation held up, how many non-politically correct jokes were in the movie, and most importantly, if the pink fish was still hot (remember, this is a judge-free zone). To begin, the animation did not hold up. The fishs’ arm and fin animations, soulless eyes and awkward movements were unsettling. I almost turned the movie off within the first few minutes. The biggest offenders were the sharks — their fins bent so unnaturally that it made my spine crawl. Like, okay, I understand that you need to suspend your disbelief for a movie about talking fish, but still, they could at least not creep me out unintentionally.
Before I get into how problematic this movie is, I’ll come right out and say it: Lola is still a sexy fish! Say what you want, but there’s a reason why if you look up “the sexy fish from…”, Shark Tale auto-populates. I’m not the only one who sees how attractive the fish is. Regardless of how hot the Angelina Jolie fish looked, some jokes didn’t sit right with me. However, I was expecting it to be a lot worse. For a movie created in the early 2000s by a group of white comedians, I was buckling in for everything but straight-up slurs. Aside from some weird cultural stereotypes and slight misogyny, it wasn’t as embarrassing as expected.
But there is something that I never realized as a child that I picked up while rewatching. We know the movie is about Oscar — a nobody fish whose claim to fame is pretending he killed a shark. But the real story is about discovering one’s sexuality and helping their family and friends come to terms with it. I think Lenny was the writers’ attempt at a queer-coded character. I don’t think they did a great job, though. Lenny is seen as weak, skittish and a vegetarian, oddly enough. It seems like the movie’s creators wanted to add deeper layers to the film but instead relied on weird stereotypes of gay men to carry the message.
When the movie ended, I was left with a feeling of disgust and disappointment. I was ready to have fun rewatching a childhood classic but was left with more questions than answers.
I want to end on a positive note, so I’ll switch gears to a gem I watched a lot as a youngin. Over The Hedge was a movie that I owned as a pirated DVD. I often watched it during the summers when it was too hot to play outside. Of the three films I rewatched, this one held up the best. The animation was pretty smooth and enjoyable to watch. The jokes were funny. However, as a kid, I was on the animals’ side. I rooted for them to find food and terrorize the lady’s house.
Watching Over The Hedge now, I am so pro-Gladys that it isn’t even funny. Sure, she set up a bunch of dangerous traps and used an illegal weapon, but these cute woodland creatures were completely terrorizing her. What else would you expect her to do? I think she had every single right to defend her brand-new home. And looking back on it now, given that this movie came out two years before the major recession, I don’t blame her one bit! The film makes her out to be a monster, but I think she’s a good tax-paying citizen defending her homestead. So who’s the real villain here?
Regardless, I think all of these movies are fun to watch. I recommend getting your friends together, stockpiling snacks and making a game out of watching these poorly-aged classics!
