Ed was directed by Bill Couturié. It starred Matt LeBlanc during his Friends days. It also starred multiple people playing one
chimpanzee by wearing an animatronic chimpanzee costume that did not look
convincing. The movie is about a minor
league baseball team that brings on a chimpanzee as their third baseman.
The story of this movie could have been a whole lot
better. The story of Air Bud is better,
and the core concept is nearly identical.
Change the animal and the sport and the same movie can be made. The major issue is in how Ed was made. The chimpanzee was not a real chimpanzee. That removes the majority of the wonder from
an animal playing the sport. This is
especially true when the substitute for the animal is not believable as the
animal. Not only was this an issue, but
the way they wrote the Ed character turned the chimpanzee into an extremely
intelligent, almost humanlike character.
Doing this fit with the sensibilities of the rest of the film but never
felt true. A chimpanzee that did not
look like a chimpanzee yet had intelligence that was nearly human destroys any
sense of reality. An issue arises when
this is brought into the baseball storyline of the movie. The baseball stuff is grounded in some sort
of reality. The main character can throw
the ball really fast, but that does not seem like too much of a stretch. The chimpanzee does. Though fitting with the comedic sensibilities
of the movie, the character of Ed stands out in the baseball section as too
outlandish for the story.
As was already said, the core concept of the movie is
good. A struggling baseball team enlists
the help of their mascot, a chimpanzee, to help them win some games. This is a story that could have some cute
moments for animal lovers, some tense sports moments for sports fanatics, and a
wholesome story for the family to enjoy.
Ed threw all of that stuff out the window. The movie makes an attempt to be a
comedy. Most of the jokes fall flat or
even induce groans. The story of the
struggling baseball team loses the heart behind it due to jokes, mostly related
to the character of Ed. It seems as
though there were different ideas that did not fit together properly, but
instead grated at each other. It was as
if the movie was a bone, fractured into many pieces, all scraping against each
other. Though, it did not hurt quite
that much. The pieces just did not come
together in the way that they should have.
1996 was a fairly good year for movies. There are lots of movies from that year that
I like. Ed was not one of those
movies. It could have been so much more
than it turned out to be. I have no hate
for the movie, but whereas other movies of that time and that genre at least
hit some emotional beat, Ed felt hollow and empty. What bothers me is that it could have been
better. It could have been so much
better. But we were given this.
There are some notes that I would like to make:
- This is the first movie covered in the Sunday "Bad" Movie posts that was nominated for any Razzies. It was nominated for Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Screen Couple.
- If you have any suggestions for bad movies, feel free to leave them in the comments, or message me on Twitter.
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