The Insanity that is The Oogieloves (2012)

Sometimes I will watch a movie and have absolutely no idea as to what I will write about it.  The movie leaves me having no words to properly describe it to a degree that I feel comfortable with.  There is no possible way for me to truly share my feelings about what I have watched because the movie has left me so dumbfounded and confused.  I’m at a loss for anything to write.  This week’s Sunday “Bad” Movie is one of those movies.  I watched it the whole way through but I can’t think of anything I can write to truly represent what played before my eyes.  It’s a horrible feeling when you want to write about something but you can’t figure out what to say.

Perhaps I should tell you what movie I’m attempting to write about this week.  The movie is The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, a children’s musical from 2012.  The most notorious thing about Oogieloves is that it had one of the worst box office performances ever.  The other known thing about Oogieloves is the cast.  The movie was able to attract some relatively well known performers to participate in it.  These included Cloris Leachman, Christopher Lloyd, Cary Elwes, Jaime Pressly, Chazz Palminteri and Toni Braxton.  This is a cast of recognizable folks.

I’m almost positive that the best way to talk about this movie is to describe certain bits about it.  So this paragraph is a warning.  If you do not want to be spoiled when it comes to The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, do not read any further.  The rest of this blog post will be spoiling some moments within the movie that puzzled me.  Almost the entire movie puzzled me.  I’m not going to write about everything in the movie.  I will only be highlighting some of the odder, possibly more disturbing moments within the movie.  If you are still with me because you have either seen the movie or just don’t care, you have been warned.  Not only will spoilers follow, but things will get weird.

I’m going to start with the second scene of the movie.  The first scene was not especially crazy, but the second scene really ups the ante in terms of ludicrousness.  Let me set up the scene for you.  The Oogieloves are sleeping in their bedroom when a face appears in the window and begins to sing about waking up and how fun it is.  It is during the song that the Oogieloves wake up and begin their day with a dance number.  One of their movies is what I would call the “heil Hitler.”  It sure looked like that kind of physical positioning to me.  I was shocked to see it.  Completely and utterly shocked was I.  It was an astonishing way to begin a children’s movie and was only the first of many insane moments.

The next crazy moment that I’m going to describe to you is a scene involving Toni Braxton.  Her character is a singer that love roses but is also allergic to them.  She helps to illustrate how they make her sick by singing a song about coughing and sneezing and such things.  The lyrics are so inane and terribly constructed that the song should be a throwaway bad song.  The problem is that Toni Braxton is such a wonderful singer that she makes the song listenable.  It’s a strange assortment of feelings that flow through me as I watch the scene and hear the music.  I love the vocals but I hate the lyrics.  I don’t know whether or not to like the song.  This scene is the closest that The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure comes to greatness.  It’s still very far away.  The next scene is definitely nowhere near as good.

The scene that I’ve noticed people talking about every once in a while is a scene in which Cary Elwes appears.  Elwes was known in the 80s and 90s for movies like The Princess Bride, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Twister, and Liar Liar.  Now it is a decade and a half later.  His star power has faded and he is now being cast in things like The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure.  In this movie, Elwes plays a trucker cowboy who is always wobbling.  He drives a bubble truck and sings a song about wobbling while bubbles float around him.  This might sound like children’s movie fun, but it is teaching the wrong things.  When Elwes sings about wobbling to the left, he moves to the right.  When he sings about wobbling to the right, he moves to the left.  His character does not know the right directions.  Why doesn’t he know the right directions?  I don’t know.  You don’t know.  What we know is that he likes to wobble.  That’s about all I know about him.  He really likes to wobble.

Now things are going to get depressing as I bring you into the final scene of the movie that I want to write about.  This scene isn’t exactly the last scene of The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, but it’s pretty darn close.  The whole point of the movie was for the Oogieloves to retrieve five magical balloons for their friend’s surprise birthday party.  The one catch to the birthday party is that their friend is a limbless pillow that can’t properly talk.  The entire birthday party scene feels like a last hurrah for a dying friend.  It just has an odd tone when it is supposed to be a happy celebration.  Everyone is dancing and singing while the friend sits motionless on a chair.  All of the characters met throughout the adventure are sending in video messages that feel like something you would get in the moments before you die.  It feels like a death scene, yet it’s a birthday party.  This scene really bothered me.

I do not believe I did justice to just how outlandish The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure is.  There is much more than the few scenes that I described.  Describing also does not do as much as actually watching the movie would do.  If you don’t believe me about the inherent insanity of the movie, watch it yourself and tell me what you thought of it.  I think it is crazy and absurd.  Hey, that’s just my thought.  I don’t regret seeing it.  It’s worth the one watch just to see what it truly is.  I will never be watching the movie again, though.  No, sir or ma’am.  This movie is too insane for a rewatch.

There are a few notes to make before the end:

• Alecia Jai Frears made an appearance in Oogieloves, marking her second Sunday “Bad” Movie.  The first one was Crossover.
• Cary Elwes also made a small appearance in Hansel and Gretel Get Baked.
• Oogieloves was nominated for two Golden Raspberry awards.  It got a nomination for Worst Screen Ensemble, and a nomination for Worst Picture.
• If you have any suggestions for future movies in the Sunday “Bad” Movies, feel free to message me on Twitter, or leave a comment below.