Little Man

Released: 06/30/06

Viewed: 4:45pm 07/12/06

Starring: Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Tracy Morgan, Kerry Washington, John Witherspoon

Directed by: Keenan Ivory Wayans

Sony Pictures Official Site of the movie

The review for Little Man would be a lot easier to write if I had any amount of passion or excitement for the finished product. As it stands I neither love it for being an unyielding crude laugher, nor hate it for being an offensive collection of nonsense. If either of those applied I could latch on to it and really give this movie the cheers or jeers it deserves. But I didn’t love it the way I had hoped and I didn’t hate it the way I’m sure most people will. It’s a Wayans Brothers movie trying to be an inspirational family film, and that is a messy combination.

Marlon Wayans plays Calvin, a pint sized criminal that is forced to impersonate a baby in order to retrieve a stolen diamond from the family he stashed it with. That’s not a bad premise for a movie if it weren’t for the fact that Marlon Wayans is six foot two.

They achieved this by filming the movie normally with a little person acting in the part as a placeholder. They then super imposing Marlon’s head onto that actor’s body. There’s been some drama over the lengths gone to put one actors head on the body of another when they could have cast a little person. I’ve heard some calling it a casting move on par offensively with casting Jack Black as Mexican in Nacho Libre, or Rob Schneider as anything in any movie. But it’s a gimmick, and Marlon is a funny guy. I’m not saying there aren’t any funny midgets in the world; I’m just saying that they’re only funny when they’re being thrown. Just kidding.

Part of me thinks it would have been just as believable if Marlon had dressed up in the baby outfit himself, because the technology of mashing one body part on another is not quite there yet. This isn’t Face Off for Christ’s sake!

Truth be told, as the movie went on I started to forget that this man-child was a mad scientists CGI project, and I started to believe him as a person. It’s amazing what you’ll fall for when clever camera tricks and big hats are properly used. And I’ll give them a lot of credit for making one of the most potentially distracting characters in movie history blend in with the scenery. It’s never perfect but it’s not consistently horrible.

What is unbelievable is the reaction this infiltrated family has when “baby� Calvin shows up on their doorstep. Sean Wayans and Kerry Washington play the dimwitted couple who accept Calvin as a baby for no other reason then he’s wearing baby clothing. That’s like dressing up your cat as Superman and throwing it out the window to save your child who you dressed up as Batman and threw out the window only to remember moments later that Batman can’t fly. Either they were so desperate to have a child that they were willing to accept the unacceptable or they’re functionally retarded.

For the record, I love the Wayans Brothers. The Scary Movie franchise (which they established and produced the first two) has its hits and misses, but the Wayans Brothers show (in regular rotation on BET) is criminally underrated, and White Chicks, as absurd and offensive as it is, is a really funny movie. They’re off kilter, filthy, and a little odd but when the humor is there – who cares? If I’m laughing this hard then somebody is doing something right.

And Little Man has a lot of strong laughs. Nearly a dozen that where followed with clapping, stomping, obsessive high-fiving or all three. Granted it’s pretty much all distasteful humor, which is more shock than wit, but at the end of the day funny is funny. I love a well-crafted joke but I’m not too proud to laugh at a well-timed fart joke. Kudos to the Wayans’ for holding out for an hour and 4 minutes before doing their fart joke in Little Man. We all knew it was coming and it was worth the wait.

The movie loses me with its big emotional push. They try hard to turn this into a life lesson movie about fathers and sons and the importance of family, but it never quite fits. It’s too sweet for the rest of the movie. The Wayans template naturally wants to reject it. It’s as if they’re trying to deliver a meaningful innocent message while still holding on to their credibility, as brutally filthy comedians and I didn’t buy it.

Rating: 6 out of 10

If you love crappy movies you won’t necessarily love Little Man but you’ll have a few real laughs. If you’re willing to.

DVD Worthy?:

I can get by without it. This will be in heavy rotation on basic cable before the end of the year and I can imagine after two or three more viewings I’ll have had my fill.

Trailer Hitch: Jackass: Number Two

Jackass in theaters is a beautiful thing. It’s an invitation to gather all your nearest and dearest trouble making friends, get as absolutely smashed as is humanly possible and laugh until it hurts. It’s one of the only times I would encourage people to act rowdy in the theater and to talk back to the screen, because it doesn’t matter. There’s no plot, there’s no tracked progression. As long as I can see Steve-O stapling some part of his body to another part of his body, then it’s all good.

If You liked this movie check out: White Chicks

Little Man has its moments but I find that White Chicks is both funny and offensive. I don’t find black man masquerading as a white woman or a tall man masquerading as a short man offensive, just idea that we’re supposed to find either believable. The Wayans brothers in White Chicks looked less like white woman and more like burn victims. You spend the entire movie wondering how anyone could fall for it. It’s one of those things though were you have to accept the absurdity of it all just so you can enjoy the jokes. Like with Little Man it’s easier to think that these people aren’t believable as white woman, but that the people they encounter in the movie are just head wound victims.

Vote incentive:

No vote incentive today, my apologies. I just really wanted to get this review up. If I can think of something later though I’ll scribble it out and post it. If you’d still like to vote though I would hold you in the highest regard.

That’s it for today. More soon but I can’t say for sure when. Less than a week until the wedding, and I know I’ll get everything done, I’m just not sure when. I’ll be gone for a week so I can go on the honeymoon, but I’ve arranged for a guest week in my absence. I got some pretty cool people on board and I’m really excited about it. I think you’ll all enjoy it. Later.

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