R E V I E W S
Disney's The Kid (2000)
Starring: Bruce
Willis, Spencer Breslin, Emily Mortimer, Lily Tomlin Rating: PG Studio: Walt Disney Pictures Review Posted: 7.8.00 Rating: 7/10
By Stephen.
"There's a kid in all of us somewhere"
In this movie you have to feel with the characters. Although there is a lot of screaming between them, you still sort of like them. At least you should because in the last 30 minutes you will either feel joy and pain with them or feel nothing at all. Disney's The Kid requires you to think simple. It forces you to turn ON your imaginative side, for a lot of stuff in this movie is not actually possible. Like meeting yourself in the same time, just ages younger, or older. Basically, the feel of the movie resembles the themes of Frequency and Big. I liked both of those movies. And so as a guide, if you liked them, you'll probably like Disney's The Kid. However, Big had a young boy wishing to become a grown-up. In Frequency, father and son reunite, which is somewhat the same in Kid.
Russ Duritz (Bruce Willis) is an overbearing, angry, tired image consultant. He's almost 40. Doesn't own a dog. Has no ladyfriend. All he could possibly want is to meet a strange 8-year-old boy (Breslin) in his house at night... not. Russ finds out that the boy, named Rusty, is actually himself at age 8. Russ doesn't know what to do with Rusty so he asks his secretary Janet (Lily Tomlin) for help. She can't help him so Russ asks his co-worker/friend Amy (Emily Mortimer) for help. She begins to like Rusty, the puffy little kid. After one hour of screaming, neglecting and separation between them, Russ has an idea of why they've been thrown together in the present. Rusty was meant to refresh Russ's memory about his past and tell him that the past doesn't belong where it is.
In the last half hour, the movie will come to a point where you have to feel for the character(s). Russ and Rusty magically enter Rusty's time from a tunnel. Russ remembers the time when he got beat up in kindergarten, which resulted in him being the loser all along in high school. But he's out to change that. Rusty will prove himself in kindergarten. He ultimately punches the bully, which is the event that Russ believed is the reason Rusty showed up in his life. But it dawns on him that it's not the fight with the bully. It's something more tragic. And that is exactly where you will either feel with Russ and Rusty, or feel nothing at all. I felt with them. You won't really come to tears, but it's touching.
John Turteltaub's direction is good in a sense but a little poky in another sense. Marc Shaiman's music heavily creates a score that feels childish (he worked on South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut). Turteltaub's direction is fine by me, although some critics didn't quite like it, saying that it was a bit overdone in some parts of the movie. Audrey Wells wrote the script (she wrote-directed the film Guinevere and was also responsible for the George of the Jungle script). One thing that concers me about the end of this movie is that I didn't quite catch it. It seemed like it was all a dream. I was sort of left open. It might even confuse kids a lot more. But it had a happy ending, I can say that for sure.
Overall, Disney's The Kid was a movie I enjoyed, even though I had a terrible seat (in the front, to the very left of the theater). It's also another movie teaming Willis with a child actor (he previously worked with child actors on The Sixth Sense - good one - and Mercury Rising - not a good one). Well, I guess this pretty much sums it up.
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