If you do, then don’t watch this film. I think I got it muddled in my mind with the Lawnmower Man, and what a shock! Sorry folks, but I promise you, I sat down prepared to have a relaxing couch potato evening’s entertainment. Well, if you like harrowing scenes you may enjoy the poodle getting his haircut at 40 mph or maybe the sight of a slightly cardboard effort at a Haunted House from Dracula country!!
The story begins in fairytale fashion, gentle and comfortable, then the element of adulthood appears in the shape of a massively overdone caricature, the American Avon Lady. So far, reasonably good, but she started to irritate me mildly as so much time is spent on her whining sales efforts in the sugary clean All-American-Dream road of cardboard houses, all of which contain versions of the same whining caricature of the American housewife. The houses, by the way, do actually show some originality – if you look carefully, they are different colours!
I decided that this was an adult fairytale and pastiche – thus its status as a cult film. Then the American Avon Lady discovered Edward and rescued him from what had been his solitary existence as the creation of a dead inventor. She cheesily accepted his hands as being long noisy pieces of stiff tinfoil – at least, that is what they sounded like! She took him home and again, the caricature of the fussy female with a feather brain appears s she tried to treat him as a normal person. My oh my, she actually tried makeup on him … several times.
Her nauseatingly vocal and stupid female neighbours serve to demonstrate that someone somehow had a brainstorm when thinking up this “story”, for I would nominate it for Oscars for the best portrayal of the old fashioned stereotype of the silly female and the daft boy. Yes, Edward himself was little better, except that he was quieter – literally! He oscillates between almost total, expressionless silence and manic metal flapping sessions, after which one has the sickening vision of some animal, bush or female who has had a hair/branch/fur-cut! He does rebel in a mild way, but I am sorry, by the time you have sat through an hour and a quarter, you either are asleep, mesmerised by the stupidity of the characters or the sheer boredom of the snail-paced storyline, or, like me, you are likely to go screaming mad and walk out.
I am happy to allow that some people might enjoy this film – I cannot think why, as the storyline is … er, well, there somewhere I hope, but I never got caught up in it. Maybe you can let me know why it is listed here at all? I love the Hobbit, Narnia stories, Greenwitch and even Noddy, but this bored me to the state of annoyance!