Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
No, loyal Unwatchable readers, you have not missed an installment. Number 69 on the big list of failure is last year’s The Perfect Holiday, which will not be released on DVD until November. We’ll get back to it then, but meanwhile, let’s move on to the 1996 family movie that made you believe in Shaquille O’Neal as a seven-foot-tall rapping genie.
To his credit, Shaq does an admirable job of convincing us that he is, in fact, seven feet tall. Honestly, I would place little of the blame for Kazaam’s failures at the big man’s big feet, even if they are encased in goofy pointy-toed genie shoes for much of the running time. True, his rapping ability is largely a figment of his imagination. But the fact remains that someone in an office somewhere decided it would be a good idea for the genie played by Shaq to rap, and we can hardly blame the amiable giant for going along with the plan. He may not be much of an actor, but he’s got undeniable charisma and I appreciated his willingness to get silly. I don’t think Kobe Bryant would be caught dead in those MC Hammer pants.
With that, I’ve just about run out of good things to say about Kazaam. Some might tell you it’s a clever conceit that the genie, moving on with the times, has abandoned his traditional bottle for a boombox. I am not among them. Anyway, Kazaam is dislodged from his portable stereo home by Max Connor (Francis Capra, later of Veronica Mars), a mild troublemaker being raised by a single mom. Max gets the traditional three wishes, but he can’t wish for “ethereal” things like a second chance for his estranged father, only material things like a room full of junk food.
At first Kazaam is eager for Max to get his wishes over with so he can get back to his boombox, but when his sensational rapping takes the clubs by storm (even Da Brat is impressed), the big genie starts to get used to life outside the box. Meanwhile, Max gets to know his dad, who, it turns out, is something of a sleazebag. Especially compared to the heroic firefighter mom is dating. Along the way we keep trying not to notice that this is a movie about a little white kid who owns a big black man, but it’s not easy, especially in the scene where Max yells at Kazaam, “I own you!”
I guess it all works out in the end, although I retain some confusion over how Kazaam transforms himself into a ‘djinn’ who actually can grant ethereal wishes. I must have been distracted by all the rapping. So much rapping. Why so much rapping? Let’s blame director Paul Michael Glaser. You know him best as TV’s Starsky, of course, but don’t overlook his directorial career, which began with Band of the Hand in 1986. The only thing I know about Band of the Hand is the theme song by Bob Dylan, which is actually the most listenable thing Dylan produced in the mid-80s, even if I have no idea how or why he did it. Glaser next directed the oddly prescient Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle The Running Man, followed by the hockey romance The Cutting Edge and the basketball comedy The Air Up There. But even with all of those dubious achievements under his belt, it took Kazaam to kill off his career in feature filmmaking. That alone makes it worth three Maurys. Well, that and the rapping.
Previously on Unwatchable:
70. Epic Movie
71. Gigli
72. Meet the Spartans
73. Fascination
74. You Got Served