The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure (2012) Take 2

It’s been a whole year since I began my quest of watching and writing about one movie per week.  In honour of this anniversary, I put out the question to anybody who would hear it.  If I were to rewatch one of the movies I had watched in the first fifty posts, which movie would it be?  The poll was put up and people voted.  The choice was made.  In the end, I was told to rewatch a movie called The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure.  Would I enjoy rewatching this movie?  No I would not.  But I rewatched it anyway because the people had chosen.

What struck me while watching it this time was something that had struck me the first time, but the sheer lunacy of the movie had made me quickly forget what it was.  The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure is a movie that is made for children.  That might seem obvious.  Clearly it’s a movie designed for kids to watch and enjoy.  What slipped my mind was exactly how much the movie pandered to children by dumbing everything down, and how my feeling of the movie being insane was brought on by how alienated I felt by the movie.

The pandering begins rather early with the opening scene, in which the Oogieloves introduce both themselves and the conceit of the movie.  This is going to be one of those things, like a Dora the Explorer type of television show, where the audience will participate in what happens on screen.  This way, the kids can jump around, sing, and cause an all-around ruckus in the theater.  The parents will have to keep control of the children that cause mayhem for other people.  But it’s the introduction of the characters in this opening scene that really panders to the children.  Their names sound like the kind of things that parents would say to their toddlers in order to make them giggle.  Goobie, Zoozie, and Toofie are the names of the three Oogieloves.  These names are sure to make the children smile and the parents groan.

As for the music in the movie, I’d be lying if I said that the melodies in them weren’t catchy or pleasant to listen to.  If the songs were only the melodies, I’d be happy to listen to the soundtrack during my non-movie watching life.  When heard with the lyrics, however, I am forced to curl up in the fetal position and wait out a waking nightmare.  The lyrics to all of the songs are terrible, and many times they border upon incomprehensible.  The worst offender of this is a song called “Wobble With Your Wiggle.”  Cary Elwes joins the Oogieloves as Bobby Wobbly, a wobble loving bubble hauler.  The song makes very little sense.  It has lines such as “Wobble with your wiggle, let your wiggle wobble too, wobble bobble all around, it’s so much fun to do.”  What does that mean?  I can imagine children eating this song up because it sounds nice, but when you actually listen to and comprehend the lyrics, you realize that the song is basically melodic nonsense.

The most nonsensical thing in the movie, however, comes late in the big balloon adventure.  The Oogieloves have completed their adventure and are traveling home with the balloons when the wind grows too strong and the balloons fly away.  In an attempt to teach kids about the importance of love, the balloons say that the only thing stronger than the wind is love.  I’m sure that any adults currently reading this are either laughing or groaning at this point.  I am not lying.  The climax of the movie involves the Oogieloves getting their balloons back by blowing kisses at them.  They encourage the audience to do the same.  Blowing kisses will destroy the laws of physics.  This is something that children would have no problem with.  It is much easier for children to suspend their disbelief and go along with what the characters are suggesting.  As for the adults, this suggestion seems ridiculous, even with all of the other ridiculous stuff in the movie.  Sure, the movie is called The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, but this love conquering all solution to the issue was not set up at any other point in the movie.  Why didn’t they do this at the beginning and avoid the whole adventure?

The entirety of The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure was dumbed down to make it more enjoyable for children.  I’m not sure that it worked since I have never watched it with a child.  I can say that it does not make it an enjoyable experience for an adult.  It has the same sort of feeling as watching someone do baby talk to their newborn child.  For the people making it, there were some good intentions.  However, watching it without being the one behind the baby talk, the movie seems utterly stupid.  Do children like being spoken to in this way?  It’s hard for me to tell.  I know I don’t like it.

The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure is a movie geared towards small children.  There was an attempt to get an adult audience through the stars that were tossed into the movie, but the movie is still for children.  It panders to what people think children would like, without giving any consideration to the adults that have to accompany their children to the movie.  It alienates any adults that watch it, and that’s never what you want out of a movie.  Movies should be accessible.  This one is not.

There are some notes I would like to put in at the end of this post:

• Here’s a link to the first post I wrote for The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure.
• I have a post related to the Sunday “Bad” Movies that is going up this week.  It is a little something I wrote about The Disaster Artist, a book by Greg Sestero about his relationship with Tommy Wiseau, and his time working on the film The Room.
• If you have any suggestions for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, feel free to comment below.  I will see any comments.  Or you could message me on Twitter.  That works too.