Imagine That Offers Up Simple Pleasures
It’s become passé to give Eddie Murphy a hard time for selling out. By this point it’s pretty much become a given that this massively funny actor has decided to phone it in from this point on, happy to keep appearing in a string of mediocre family-friendly movies no one wants to give the time of day to let alone bother with.
Eddie Murphy and Yara Shahidi bond in Paramount Pictures' Imagine That
Be that as it may, I’m not completely willing to write him off just yet. While his latest effort Imagine That certainly doesn’t require him to stretch his acting muscles one little bit, the film isn’t the mediocre monstrosity that on first glance it appeared to be. There is a sweet innocence to it that’s altogether wonderful, and while the script does unfortunately go off the rails during the third act up until then I was more than a bit surprised just how much I was enjoying this particular effort.
The storyline follows divorced father Evan Danielson (Murphy), a financial wizard who’s stuck taking care of his young daughter Olivia (Yara Shahidi) for the week even though he’d rather not be doing so. Distracted by his own career and the potential for taking over as head-man at the company, he’s not giving his little girl the attention she very much deserves, the child disappearing more and more inside her own imaginary world because of it.
After Olivia’s imaginary friends start giving him spot-on financial advice, Evan decides to step inside his daughter’s mental playroom hoping to get more help. But what starts as a self-serving ploy to further his career suddenly becomes an exercise in bonding both parent and child desperately needed, each of them gaining insights into the other freeing them from the insecurities and fears holding them back.
It’s a simple premise, and one that on paper sounds borderline insufferable. But Ed Solomon (Men in Black) and Chris Matheson’s (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure) screenplay shows admirable restraint, not a poop, pee or fart joke anywhere to be found. Better than that, director Karey Kirkpatrick (Over the Hedge) doesn’t go for visual shenanigans that would distract from the central relationship, the focus constantly kept on Olivia and Evan just as it belongs.
If anything, the movie is almost for adults than it is for kids. The first half to two-thirds in particular are quiet, peaceful and beautifully subtle. Sure Murphy cracks wise with a few weird voices or histrionic physical contortions, but for the most part that’s kept to a bare minimum, dialogue the key to the central relationship while the imaginary world the two of them venture inside kept to the audience’s own imagination to visualize and flesh out for themselves.
Too bad it all falls so disappointingly to pieces during the stretch run. Everything becomes frantic and annoying, characters scurrying around like chickens with their heads cut off. A subplot involving Evan’s rival – obnoxiously portrayed by the usually reliable Thomas Haden Church – becomes downright insufferable, while other scenes serve little to no purpose whatsoever. It all becomes a jumbled, hyperactive mess, and if not for a beguiling and sweet coda at an elementary school concert the good will generated by the early portions would have been totally erased.
That it isn’t is a testament to the chemistry going on between Murphy and delightful newcomer Shahidi, as well as the assured comic hand of Kirkpatrick. As bad as many of the climactic moments get they never reach they breaking point. At a certain point, I wanted to see Evan and Olivia’s relationship saved, wanted them to reconnect so that father-daughter bond wouldn’t be broken.
There are no special effects, no flashy visuals pulling a viewers attention, so I can’t say how much kids are going to warm to this one or not. What I can say is that the preview audience seeing it with me laughed and never appeared bored by the film even when it seemed as if it was going to go wildly off the rails. This is a movie that asks you to accept it for what it is, its simple story of redemption and parenthood assuming viewers of all ages have attention spans longer than that of a flea’s.
Imagine That isn’t going to change Murphy’s downward career spiral, but it doesn’t plant another nail in the coffin, either. There is enough to like about this film and the story it so warmly tries to tell that it’s easy to forgive the missteps and only remember the moments that click. It’s a small movie, one with little flair or fanfare, but on its own simple merits it’s also quite enjoyable, and considering the star’s recent output that’s one outcome I personally could have never imagined.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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