The Banana Splits Movie – Film Review
A boy named Harley Williams (Finlay Wojtak-Hissong) and his brother Austin (Romeo Carere), mother Beth (Dani Kind), and step-father Mitch (Steve Lund) attend a taping of The Banana Splits TV show, which is supposed to be a fun-filled birthday for young Harley and business as usual for Rebecca (Sara Canning), the producer of the series. But things take an unexpected turn — and the body count quickly rises. Can Harley, his mom and their new pals safely escape?
To be completely honest with you right out of the gate, I had zero interest in checking out Danishka Esterhazy’s The Banana Splits Movie. Even though the trailer admittedly did acknowledge the fact that it was not a serious picture by any means necessary, I just thought the film looked bad. Plain and simple. However, I noticed that it had been getting some positive reviews from some people and a few of my friends online enjoyed it as well.
Some have even said that it reminded them a little bit of the now iconic Five Nights at Freddy‘s video game series created by Scott Cawthon, a series that I do deeply adore. So, I finally caved in any decided to see what all the fuss was about in regards to this film. Watching this movie was something that I genuinely regret doing, because The Banana Splits Movie is without a doubt, one of the worst movies of the whole year so far.
The Banana Splits Movie (2019)
Throughout the film, the filmmakers do seemingly attempt to make it obvious that they are going for the whole corny and cheesy aspect on purpose, yet, even still it just does not work and comes across extremely cringe-worthy. It is one of the weakest scripts not only from this year, but one of the weakest in years. There is virtually nothing of interest going on in this story. It is literally just about a boy who goes to a taping of a television show that he likes and crazy things start to happen to him and his family.
To be fair, this concept could have been seriously amazing had they tweaked a few things. I honestly hope that another movie comes along down the road with a similar concept but with significantly better execution because watching this film practically fall apart on itself was painful. This could have been a “so bad that it’s good” type of movie, but instead, it is just so bad that it’s bad.
Also, the acting here is some of the worst I have seen in quite some time. Unfortunately, the weakest actor in the movie is its lead actor Finlay Wojtak-Hissong, who portrays Harley. His line delivery was just not the best and his character was extremely flat. But it is not just him. It is essentially everybody involved. They either give incredibly over the top performances or just very bland ones at that.
The Banana Splits Movie (2019)
For a movie like this, I expected a lot more. But it is absolutely filled to the brim with annoying and some even downright horrible characters that are not good people, making it impossible for us to root for a lot of the characters involved here. The dialogue is cringe-inducing, the acting is horrible, and it is a movie with practically no entertainment value. Trust me, if anybody was going to be entertained watching animatronic characters roaming around and causing chaos, it is me. But unfortunately, this movie just did not do the trick.
The Banana Splits Movie is a painfully bland and poorly acted mess that contains one of the weakest scripts of the year, and is devoid of entertainment value.
Overall Grade: F
MPAA Rating: R for horror violence and gore
Cast: Dani Kind, Steve Lund, Finlay Wojtak-Hissong, Romeo Carere, Sara Canning, Eric Bauza
Directed by: Danishka Esterhazy
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Running Time: 86 minutes