First off, the menu on the DVD will make you crazy. Dirty ole Tinkerbell comes flying in at volume 1,000 and will blow your TV speakers out. You can't get to the remote fast enough. Dirty ole Tinkerbell! But with a BF promise of Kurt Russell in hot kicks and a brief discussion on the merits of HOCUS POCUS, I settled in with the old Buena Vista font. TCWTS came out in 1969. The same year as Midnight Cowboy, True Grit, The Sterile Cuckoo and one of my favorite movies THE LOVE BUG! I must say, a pleasant year. TCWTS already seems outdated even in 1969.
Kurt Russell plays a college student named Dexter and he is super dreamy. The student body, made up of about 25 white kids and one black dude. They use the back in the day version of a Smart Phone (Walkie Talkie) to spy on the college administers as they discuss the civil unrest and "progress" that is happening on campus. Uh, the kids are all eating lunch and they are acting like it is Kent State. A big ass computer is being built on campus and the students spend a lot of time computing things into the computer. It is kinda too stupid. They don't seem to doing any "progress" or having any "unrest," but Kurt Russell does don a jacket that I will be dreaming about for the rest of my life.
One stormy night, Dexter goes into the lab and it is ZAPPED! time and he gets the brain of a computer! He doesn't actually turn into a computer ala "Automatic Lover" which I hoped for. He just gets real smart and immediately drops out of college, because he is the smartest person in the world, why give way your money, honey! If I had a computer for a brain and I would totally wear tennis shoes. He becomes the toast of the world and even gets his own stock footage parade. You know you have arrived when you get your own stock footage parade. He watches diamonds being cut, he travels to Cape Cod and watches a missile go in the air and SUDDENLY his friends are allowed to hang out with him by APPOINTMENT ONLY! It is like The Douche Bag Computer That Wore Tennis Shoes.
The movie goes at a snail pace and doesn't really ever seem to get anywhere.I like to call it drifting. If a movie is going to do this then I am going to have a full on conversation about my favorite live action Disney film WATCHER IN THE WOODS. My BF claims it is "Too Soon" to watch it again. The film features two extended sequences involving two of the most BORING things ever. Math questions and horse races. You know anytime a movie cast goes to the race track we are going to be subjected to an entire stock footage horse race. Get me some nachos and a Budweiser in a bottle if I EVER have to sit through a horse race. AND MATH QUESTIONS?!!! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! I don't even want to talk about it. The last 40 minutes is painful. Kurt gets kidnapped, but his college buddies, even though he was rude to them, pretend to be house painters and BUST him out! Just in time to get him to the smart person quiz show, but it seems his computer brain can't find a good connection, i'm guessing he was downloading too much porn and he goes back to cute but dumb as a box of hair. Luckily, a ginger headed nerd saves the day and Kurt's friends like him again and he goes back to college. The last frame is someone asking Kurt a question and he thinks real hard and replies, "Heck, I don't know!" THAT'S IT! NO CREDITS. The end. Get gone.
I guess I get it now that I am a grown ass man. These shitty live action Disney films were all hits, because parents could dump their kids off at the theater and be done with them for a while. I would have done it too. Sadly, I realized that TCTWTS has not one, but TWO sequels!
I will need a ton of nachos and a six pack of bottled Bud to get through those. Ugh. Dirty Ole Tinkerbell.
