Goosebumps

Its not entirely a horror film, its not entirely a comedy film and thus the latest Jack Black starrer Goosebumps is not entirely a fun film. It has discrete moments of humor through its dialogues to keep us interested, but on the whole the movie is pretty much for the kids. Compared to director’s last film Gulliver’s Travels, Goosebumps is much much better. But the movie doesn’t try much to be a better entertainer and becomes just a 100 minutes of non boring story telling.

It is based on R L Stine’s books for the kids. Zach Cooper along with his other has come to the new town Madison, Delaware. He soon becomes friends with the girl in the neighborhood whose father never liked their friendship. The movie focuses on the series of events that happens after Zach and his friend Champ finds out the reason why the girl’s father (R L Stine) behaved like that. The encounters with the unleashed ghosts and how they ultimately fix all the problems caused by them is what Goosebumps talking about.

Goosebumps is a movie that doesn’t seem to be interested in entertaining the adults too. It has romance and other emotional tacks in the cheesiest style and the only creative aspect comes in certain hilarious dialogues that happen during the main chaos. Jack Black’s funny angry face and the way Stine reacts is what that helps the movie in being entertaining. There is dullness in those early portions which actually resists the movie heavily in getting in to the smooth humor track.

Jack Black was really convincing in his energetic portrayal of R L Stine with all his typical style expressions. Dylan Minnette and Odeya Rush were okay as the romantic pair. Ryan Lee however scores nicely as that dumpass friend.

As I said, it’s a much better movie when you compare it with Rob Letterman’s first film with Jack Black. There is a considerable increase in the writing quality as we could see the humor trying to be less juvenile. But the ultimate product didn’t try much to be exciting and the conclusion in a way is cheesier than what we would predict. The character detailing was impressive in the visual effects part. Nothing was much impressive about the remaining technical aspects.

Overall Goosebumps is a non boring film that could have been more humorous. If you are thinking about taking your kid for a film, this would be a good choice. The rating for the film is 2.5/5. The movie ends on the possibility of having a sequel and I really hope they would work on the script that will appeal to wider audience.