Let’s start with the melodramas of our cast of characters. Our main character, Jimmy (Luke Edwards), is more than a little messed up. And why shouldn’t he be? He’s the hero; he’s supposed to have something wrong with him so that he can overcome it in this family drama. Alas, Chisholm isn’t content to let a mere thing like divorce drive him toward video game greatness. Chisholm decides to go big and craft out the following: since the drowning death of his sister, Jimmy has been mostly silent and sneaks away at random points in an effort to get to California. His complete weasel of a stepfather (Sam McMurray, who is always delightful to watch when he’s chewing scenery in smarmy dick fashion) convinces his mother to have him institutionalized, as having a kid that runs away in the throes of a raging grief episode is just way too much of a strain on his busy country club schedule. Enter his angsty half-brother Corey (hi, Fred), who valiantly breaks the kid out to take him walking and hitchhiking across the country to prove that his kid brother doesn’t belong in an institution where, you know, people might be a little more in tune with rehabilitating a traumatized child than his self-centered parental units. On their travels (during which no cop stops to say, “Hey, look, two kids by themselves walking down a highway… Maybe I ought to check that out…”), they meet an on-her-own, street-smart girl named Haley (look, kids, it’s Jenny Lewis!), who convinces them to hustle through arcades on their way to California and compete in contest called Video Armegeddon. Jenny (er, Haley) is the old-timey coach/dangerous dame these boys need; all that she needs is either a monocle and cigar combo, or a gray hoodie and a flight of stairs for a training montage. Along the way to the video game challenge that will solve all of their problems, our kids (none of whom is older than 12) have to dodge slimy child bounty hunter Putnam (William Seltzer), who is engaged in an automobile battle royale with the kids’ dad (Beau Bridges). Oh, and they also get to show up the snobby, spoiled kid named Lucas (Jackey Vinson), who I really think the producers told to do his best impression of James Spader in Pretty in Pink.

Just reading that summary is freaking exhausting, but that’s what honestly happens in this family comedy. Yes, it’s a comedy. Sorry, it’s listed as an adventure-comedy-drama in its official capacity. But it’s got Super Mario Bros. 3, so I guess it’s all good.

In picking this apart, it’s a study in throwing way too much in far too quickly. Time-frame wise, this film takes place two years after the drowning death of Jimmy’s twin sister Jennifer (side note: you named your twins Jimmy and Jenny? Really? I’m side-eying this choice, David, despite that there are many moms out there that do the whole cutesy same-initial thing with twins.). In that time span, Jimmy’s parents have split up, his mother has remarried a colossal asshole that treats a kid he’s known for maybe a year and a half like an old car, his dad doesn’t see him much, and there has been no dent in treatment for a traumatized kid that can’t talk. Two years. Did Christine and Sam decide to throw in the towel on their marriage at Jenny’s funeral, or did they wait a month? I’m really asking, because a divorce (which takes time to go through) and then a remarriage to someone completely committed to the legal responsibilities of your child came on quick. Nevermind that Jimmy is so traumatized that he can’t talk – go ahead and remarry in a hurry, Christine. And if you think you’re getting off light, Sam, why aren’t you making a fuss to see your other child, who happens to have severe mental issues and could probably use the presence of his dad? While we’re at it, why did no one bother to try to get to the root of Jimmy’s California obsession? You do realize that with a bit of low-grade detective work, someone could have figured out that this kid wanted to go back to a family vacation spot to essentially scatter what he had left of the ashes of his sister’s memory? The answer was hiding in plain sight, but no one thought the say, “Hey, he seems pretty bent on going to California. Has anyone ever been there? Any reason he might want to go there? Was it special to him somehow?” Once you get over that nugget of gold, go back and watch the first ten minutes of this film again and tell me that there’s not a whole lot of T.V. movie-of-the-week angst going on here. I half wanted Kevin Bacon to show up and throw stuff because the preacher wouldn’t let him dance, if only to laugh in a manner that wasn’t causing me to die a little on the inside. This situation is really hellish (child death, divorce, remarriage, custody issues, mental illness), and it’s a lot for an adult to process. Putting this into a kids’ movie that’s based around the intention of flashing the then-latest gaming technology is a massive stretch. It’s unfair.  It could have been way lighter for what it was trying to accomplish at its core.

Let’s not forget some of the other parts of this film used for comic relief, which are actually quite horrible if you stop and think about them. Our girl Haley is trying to raise cash so that her dad can buy a house and not travel as much, as they hit financial troubles based on her mother’s addiction (which is not explicitly stated, but is implied to be gambling over something like alcoholism or cocaine. It’s a kids’ film, after all.). There’s no two ways around it: Haley is a grifter. She pulls cons to make money and is a kid on her own. These aspects garner Haley sympathy, which is then used to transition into laughs (in a loose manner of speaking). Case in point: at one point, she’s shouting bets across a casino to a none-too-bright trucker and dealer and patrons, for that matter). The takeaway that we’re supposed to have: look, it’s a kid that’s savvy enough to know how to play casino games, a skill which can be utilized to further their cause – poignant AND useful! In reality, it’s sad. Complicating this, we’re also supposed to laugh at the antics of the child bounty hunter Putnam, a creepy jerk who disregards at-risk children on the run while actively sabotaging a parent’s car. Nevermind that the way that Sam and Putnam engage in trying to destroy one another’s cars would see them arrested in an instant – isn’t it funny to watch two grown men slash each other’s tires and take swings at each other with a shovel? Good times, I tell you. But hey, just in case you need more grins and giggles, why not proclaim that Putnam molested a preteen girl when he’s too close to capturing his prey? Isn’t that a hoot? My favorite, though is the way our trio of rag-tag kids continually gets robbed of all money as they slug their way toward California, which no one remembers visiting before the death of the little girl. Oh, those kids – earning their money hustling arcade rats, only to get it stolen from them. It’s not supposed to be funny, but after a while, you start to wonder how many times these kids are going to get robbed before someone gets shanked. How none of these kids wound up molested or dead
is beyond me. The sad truth is that when you put all of these factors together (hell, even if you look at them one by one), their world is incredibly sad. No wonder Jimmy loses himself in video games; it’s the one thing in his poorly-dealt hand that he can control.

In the end, I found myself wanting to run this film a shower so that it could curl up in a ball and cry. By the time we get to the end and Jimmy’s true intentions are discovered, there’s been so much heaped on these kids that I’m not sure I want to know what the therapy bills are going to look like. The only thing left to do is laugh at it, lest you cry. So head on over to Rifftrax.com and download the commentary track that streams with the film. It’ll make you feel better, I promise.