Release Date: December 25, 2004
Starring: Kenan Thompson, Kyla Pratt, Dania Ramirez, Shedreack Anderson III, Keith Robinson, Jermaine Williams, Alphonso McAuley, Aaron Frazier, Marques Houston, Omari Grandberry, Bill Cosby
Directed by: Joel Zwick
Written by: Bill Cosby, Charles Kipps
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox Films
MPAA Rating: PG (momentary language)
Fat Albert is straight from the mind of Bill Cosby, who, in addition to co-writing the script and starring in it, also created the 1970’s TV cartoon on which this movie is based. It is a sweet and well-meaning film, but only when he and his original inspiration for the show are revealed does it have any life. The rest of it is mostly a comedic trifle, one that rarely reaches out to the audience old enough to remember the original “Fat Albert.”
In a fantastical sequence of events, the characters from Cosby’s show come directly out of Doris Robertson (Kyla Pratt)’s television and into her living room. All six wacky guys are there: Fat Albert himself (Kenan Thompson), Rudy (Shedrack Anderson III), Mushmouth (Jermaine Williams), Bill (Keith Robinson), Bucky (Alphonso McAuley), Old Weird Harold (Aaron Frazier), and Dumb Donald (Marques Houston). They all look exactly like they do on the show, only now they’re three-dimensional and human. The movie doesn’t spend very much time explaining how this happens, so neither will I.
It doesn’t much matter anyway, because the film quickly focuses on the situation at hand. Fat Albert and the gang now appear to be stuck in our world until their show airs again the next day, and they decide they’re going to help Doris with her self-esteem problems. They walk the streets with her, go to school with her, and go to a party with her, all while few people seem to think the group looks highly unusual. Eventually, Albert gets a crush on Doris’s foster sister, Lauri (Dania Ramirez), and Bill starts having feelings for Doris herself. This story is interwoven with a race against time storyline, in which the group must get back to their TV show before they fade out of existence, and a rivalry subplot involving a punk named Reggie (Omari Grandberry) who spends the film trying to compete against Albert for the affection of Lauri.
It’s not a very entertaining story, nor is it filled with a great deal of excitement. But it’s harmless and good-humored, and in that way it’s like Cosby’s original creation. The people are so nice in the world of this movie that none of them -- except for Reggie -- get in Albert’s way or make him and his gang feel out of place. Surely, someone would have ridiculed them for their strange looks and attitudes, especially at Doris’s high school, but they’re welcomed like kids at Disney World. It doesn’t make much sense, so the movie will undoubtedly lose anyone old enough to know this isn’t natural.
Then again, it isn’t natural for six cartoon teens to climb into the real world through a TV, and I really wanted to give in to a movies as lighthearted and nonsensical as this. But since it feels like the script only went through one draft, there’s little to latch on to. So much more could have been done with the fish-out-of-water premise, using a lot of Cosby’s great humor, but the part of the story takes a back seat to the awkward romantic angles and the unnatural “real” world setting.
One saving grace is Bill Cosby’s cameo toward the end, and the revelation of the reason why the cartoon characters singled out Doris to begin with. His scenes are short, but he exploits the movie’s silliness in a clever way -- dismissing its improbability by quickly changing the subject. Approriately enough, his scenes are the only moments that do the original program justice. The rest will be enough for kids to giggle at, and maybe even learn a lesson from. For grown-ups and fans of “Fat Albert,” the movie is merely passable.
-- Andy Zientek (zfilm@earthlink.net)