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Herbie: Fully Loaded
Herbie: Fully Loaded breaks the trend of remakes by simply copying the format of the original Herbie movies as is, without injecting any new humour or style. Good news if you're an avid fan of Herbie, but everyone else might as well get a bargain bin copy of the originals and save themselves a few quid.
Herbie: Fully Loaded is unashamedly daft and great fun, though it's a carbon copy of the previous films and isn't particularly high quality. It will appeal only to two chunks of viewers. Firstly, adults who grew up enjoying Herbie going to Monte Carlo and still watch the repeats when they come on TV and secondly, young children - younger than the first time round, because kids are more demanding today. Personally, I fit into the first category chronogically and the second one mentally, so I loved it. I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: - it's just too absurd for most. Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: Kiddie-level entertainment, but fast cars are always worth one point. To enjoy this film you should be: a child at heart.
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For the uninitiated, Herbie is a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own. Herbie drives himself, operates all his
own controls and is the fastest thing on four wheels - when he can be arsed.
Lindsay Lohan (Mean Girls, Freaky Friday) takes the role of Herbie driver this time round, though it's not all of Lindsay. After test screenings,
it was decided that her boobs were too big for a kids' movie (come again?!), so they tweaked them (so to speak) in
post-production. Now I've heard everything. Next they'll be banning bananas and walnuts.
Even if we're denied Lindsay's pre-starvation curves, at least Herbie's are for real. For those of us who were kids
when Herbie rolled for the first time, it's a pleasing nostalgia trip to see Herbie as we remember him, albeit with a
couple of new cosmetic tricks. Herbie's ludicrous antics have been retained - I remember thinking as a nipper how
crazy the old films were, and Fully Loaded makes no attempt to change that. The Dukes of Hazzard is a documentary
compared to this. Not a movie for the analytical, then.
Surprisingly, Lohan does a great job in a shallow role. Michael Keaton must feel like he's been demoted as Lohan's
protective father,
but he delivers adequately. Matt Dillon is acceptably malevolent as mean NASCAR pilot Trip Murphy and he's joined in
small cameos by real NASCAR stars Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. Herbie is, of course, the star and unsurprisingly
steals every scene with his cute and cheeky shenanigans. All in all, Fully Loaded does everything as well as Herbie
Goes Bananas et al - but therein lies the problem. Movies have moved on a lot in the past 20 years, but this movie
hasn't. Most remakes shoulder in a dose of dry humour to spice things up, and Fully Loaded has the perfect opportunity
with potentially sardonic sidekick Jimmi Simpson (Trip Murphy's mechanic), but the opportunity is tragically spurned.
The movie looks and feels just the same as the wrinkly old farts in the series, even sharing much of the same music.
For me, as a childhood fan, that's good news - I lapped it up - but for adults with no prior Herbie convictions, this is
going to leave them as flat as a Formula 1 Michelin at Indianapolis.
