May 15, 20213 min read

Kazaam: Awesomely Corny

Updated: Mar 1, 2023

Reviews by:

@lorenzo_massari_

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Have you ever experienced something that simply breaks the boundaries of judgement? Something so stupid that goes around the entire circle until it's enjoyable, so ascending that it simply refuses to play by the rules? This film is one of those things.

It's so single-handedly wholesome despite its huge faults and clamorous shortcomings just because of the sheer smiling confidence of Shaquille O'Neal who always manage to irradiate his personality on any movie he appears in, such as the DC box-office flop Steel. Despite being patently talent-less in acting and singing, if it wasn't for him this trash movie wouldn't be such a good memory, something that once finished you might tell yourself "Yep I could even bear to watch it again".

PLOT

What if Aladdin was a rapper and a basketball player, the story happened in the 90s with all its clichés (such as the misunderstood kid who finds a friend in a magical/otherworldly creature) and the genie belonged to a radio instead of a lamp? Yes, they actually made it.

SCRIPT

Overwhelmingly cheesy, lacking of originality and at the same time it does not manage to pay it off through skill. I actually moderately enjoyed the evolving friendship and personal growth (or at least the attempt) between the genie and Max, the emotional struggle of Max feelings towards his mother and the real father. But outside of that it's enormously corny and I also felt bored for much of the movie. And the rhymes of the rap pieces and dialogues of Shaq are so forced, so badly thought. I hope he improvised them at the moment, it would save the screenwriter from stoning.

Script: 4/10

ACTING

Needless to say, it's bad. Don't get me wrong, it's barely bearable, Shaq is sometimes even funny and I saw worse performances. Max is good enough considering he was a kid and the actor (Francis Capra) did not know much about his father just like his character, but that's it.

Acting: 4/10

PHOTOGRAPHY

Mostly flat, nothing exceptional and the quality of color and lightning is mediocre and no attempt were made to make it more appealing. Let's lay the blue screen of death on this at once.

Photography: 3/10

EDITING

It's unacceptable, utterly poor. Sudden, unjustified and unneeded jumps of framings, pointless slow-motions and they defied the lower limit of decency by repeatedly zooming details to the point you can almost see the pixels. If they did less stuff and less cuts, it would actually looked better because simple things are more reliable, but they put the hands on it and ruined pretty everything.

Editing: 1/10

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Luckily the awful quality of special effects actually contribute to the nonsensical humor. You can't simply take them seriously, even if you tried, it's a kid movie after all. Being aware that Drive did incomparably better with less budget, I will be a little less amenable in this department.

Special Effects: 2/10

SOUNDTRACK

They tried. They tried so hard to be cool, to appeal to 90s kids by attempting to look cool and in it. What can I say, they misfired, a huge blow in the water. The genie (Shaquille O'Neal) is supposed to be good at rapping, but beside the fact that he is the opposite of that the music itself is dreadful. So insignificant to the point I couldn't even remember a grasp of it hours after seeing it.

Soundtrack: 1/10

COSTUMES

It's okay, not terrible but not great, one of the only coherent things in this movie, the genie changes frequently throughout quirky apparel that fits in the jokes and funny scenes, even proving funny from time to time. For people who grew up in the 90s it could even wake up nostalgia. Not that bad really, sarcasm mode off.

Costumes: 5/10

CONCLUSION

Script: 4/10

Acting: 4/10

Photography: 3/10

Editing: 1/10

Special Effects: 2/10

Soundtrack: 1/10

Costumes: 5/10

AVERAGE: 2,86

This is not a good movie by any measure but at least Shaq seems to be aware of it and plays it off with his laugh and (bad) humor. At the very least it doesn't take itself seriously, which would only have made the fall more painful. I felt that they really tried to make a genuine, funny and cool kid movie without being pretentious and even if they failed it avoided ending up in the worst level of trash films.

By @lorenzo_massari_

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