Animated ‘Monkeybone’ lacks script

“Monkeybone” combines live action, various forms of animation and deals with the nature of love, death and the afterlife in an unorthodox way.

The 20th Century Fox release is directed by Henry Selick, who also directed Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Given this information before seeing the film, I had an idea of what to expect. It has all the elements to be a great mile marker in the world of fantasy films. But it tries to tackle the abstract and inevitably profound subject of life after death, and on top of that, it crosses it into the world of animation. I easily could have imagined this movie flopping, but after seeing it, I think it falls somewhere in between.

“Monkeybone” stars Brendan Fraser and Bridget Fonda –– cast members who don’t seem to fit until the movie picks up, but afterward are clearly correct choices for the characters they play.

Fraser is Stu Miley, a shy cartoonist on the verge of superstardom as his comic strip “Monkeybone” is about to become a national television cartoon. Miley is a talented artist who had been plagued by nightmares all his life until he met Julie, played by Fonda, a sleep doctor who cured his dreams by encouraging him to draw with his left hand instead of his right, as usual. This change spawned the comic “Monkeybone,” and Miley and Julie fell in love.

Now that Miley is suddenly faced with success, all he wants is to marry Julie, the one person that makes him truly happy. Unfortunately, Miley is involved in a freak accident and left comatose, whereupon his consciousness travels to “Down Town,” a freakish purgatory-like land of nightmares. There he meets the character Monkeybone, an annoying, vulgar, animated monkey who is actually Miley’s alter ego. Miley’s only wish is to return to life to tell Julie, who sits by his sleeping side day and night, how much he loves her. However, Monkeybone and the characters of “Down Town” have different plans for Miley’s body.

The story in this movie has the potential to be quite fascinating. It allows for a complex psychological exploration of the nature of consciousness, love and death. It opens doors into the infinite nuances and freakish reality that can exist entirely in one person’s mind, and hints at how easily a simple “state of mind” can have so much impact on the state of the universe as a whole.

The story and characters are subtle, which is preferable to movies that shove their point in your face. Unfortunately, despite the potential “Monkeybone” has to be deeply fascinating and mind-blowing, ultimately the story is left underdeveloped and disappointing. I assume that this is due, in part, to the producers focusing too much on the refining of visual effects and animation. Perhaps they hoped we could forgive them when the movie thinned, thinking that we’d pay more attention to the visual world, which they obviously spent a lot of time on. But, as in any good piece of work, the key is balance, and “Monkeybone” does not quite have it.

“The Cell” released by New Line Cinema last summer, had a similar problem. It had the of potential to be an incredibly groundbreaking movie, but ended up being only a fantastic visual masterpiece –– the story, plot development and acting are so terrible that this film alone might have set the art of movie-making back a few years.

What the producers of “The Cell” lacked was the patience to develop anything that wasn’t visual –– and a good group of writers. “Monkeybone” is not as extremely one-dimensional, but has some of the same problems, particularly with the screenplay.

Visually, “Monkeybone” is clever, colorful and intriguing, but it did not take my breath away as “The Cell” did. Rather than the haunting atmosphere found in “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Monkeybone” is carnival-like and disorienting, which is not a bad thing in this story. While “The Cell” should have been delivered without audio since the writing in it was so bad, “Monkeybone” makes a clear attempt at exploring the psychological anomalies it creates –– the attempt was just not given enough effort.

On top of it all, “Monkeybone” was a clever, dark comedy that only needed to be given a little more attention by its producers. Fraser, Fonda and especially Chris Kattan of Saturday Night Live, used the subtleties of their characters to their fullest extent, even if the plot itself thinned around them in some places. If the screenplay had developed its characters further, the performances by Rose McGowan, Megan Mullally, David Foley and Whoopi Goldberg would also have been pretty darn good.

I wish that Selick had kept this one on the drawing board for just a little while longer to get all the details straightened out. With a bit more time and editing, the story could have been flawless. The characters could have been truly defined, and, mixed with the visual energy that does exist in the animation and special effects, “Monkeybone” could have been one of the better movies I have seen in a while.

But perhaps I’m over analyzing. After all, is it really fair to ask more of Hollywood –– to persuade moviemakers to push for the highest level of quality they can manage in their work? It’s just a movie, isn’t it? Well … I suppose that’s a matter of opinion.