MEATBALLS 4
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1992 Ken Johnson
91 min., R, Comedy, 1992 Director: Bob Logan Cast: Corey Feldman, Jack Nance, Bojesse Christopher, Johnny Cocktails, J. Trevor Edmond, Paige French, John Mendoza, Bentley Mitchum, Christy Thom, Deborah Tucker, Frank Walton, Sarah Douglas
A water-skiing camp run by Jack Nance gets an extremely small amount of campers. The rival camp run by Bojesse Christopher gets most of the water skiing campers. To try to improve the camp, Nance gets Corey Feldman, the ex-athletic instructor from Christopher's camp, to try to improve his camp. Deborah Tucker, Nance's daughter, used to be going out with Feldman, but he left her. She is now going out with somebody else, but is not over Feldman yet. Fat Johnny Cocktails has a low self esteem and is constantly put down by people. He sees Christy Thom, a camper, and falls in love with her. Nance is running low on payments, and to keep the camp he organizes a competition between his camp and Christopher's camp. Christopher sends her henchmen, John Mendoza and Frank Walton, to make sure that Nance's camp loses.
MEATBALLS starring the always charming Bill Murray, in my opinion, is (and probably will always be) the funniest camp movie made. Then came along MEATBALLS - PART 2, it had none of the original cast members, and it sucked! Then came MEATBALLS 3, that had nothing to do with camp, but it starred the lovely Shannon Tweed and wasn't funny. It also sucked. Now comes MEATBALLS 4. MEATBALLS 4 takes place at a camp again, now a water skiing camp, and stars Corey Feldman, who has starred in some wonderful films, like THE 'BURBS, EDGE OF HONOR, FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE FINAL CHAPTER, THE GOONIES, THE LOST BOYS, and STAND BY ME. This film can't be as bad as numbers 2 and 3, *can it?*. Well, it is. On a scale of zero to five, I give MEATBALLS 4 a zero. MEATBALLS 4 is rated R for explicit language, female nudity, and adult situations.
The only people who I feel will like MEATBALLS 4 are people who are looking for cheap thrills, but will sacrifice laughs. All this film ends up being, is a T&A (tits and ass for those who don't know) film with, for the most part, poor acting. At least mixed in with the T&A there could have been some humor. I think I laughed three times and most of the jokes in the film are old and tired or just plain stupid. If you are looking for a good camp movie may I suggest MEATBALLS, PARTY CAMP, CAMP CUCAMONGA (a television film), and POISON IVY (also a television film, but is also available on video cassette).
When watching this film, I felt like it was missing something. It was almost like it was a sequel to a film that didn't exist. The actors referred to events that happened at the camp before this film took place and seemed to expect that we already knew about them. I felt that this was very poor.
I am disappointed with director Bob Logan, who brought us the hilarious EXORCIST spoof called REPOSSESSED (with Linda Blair, Leslie Nielsen, and Ned Beatty). Logan has sunk down to the level of most of Chuck Vincent's films. The writing for the film, also done by Logan, is terrible. The film is pointless, boring, and stupid. This film gives us all the common camp film elements that we have seen many times before, except they seemed better before; maybe because the films were interesting.
Corey Feldman and John Mendoza, a very talented stand up comedian, don't belong in this film. They both have talent and I am surprised that they have sunk to this level. Other than these two actors, in my opinion, the rest of the cast was uninspired. I never felt for any of the characters, and didn't care who won the battle between the camps, the ending to which was obvious from the beginning.
How this is at all related to the original MEATBALLS I don't know. At least the second one took place at the same camp. Numbers 3 and 4 don't even grace us with that. I wish that when people make sequels, they would try to make them be related to the original film, and try to make them better than the original. With the MEATBALLS series, it looks like the people making them are saying, "Ya that last one *was* bad, but I bet I can make one that is *worse* that people will still waste their money to go see. Ya, well I have one worse than that; try this one: "this person who was related to the roommate of the sister of the janitor of the original film is going to send their kids to a summer camp and let's call it a sequel." Is this what the modern cinema has turned to? I really hope not, and I wish that film makers would stop making inferior sequels and instead try making new and original films; films that make people want to see another instead of mindless trash. The worst part is that I have been waiting weeks for this film, and I wasted $2.50 renting it.
Ken J. blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu
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