How awful the 1994 North movie is

 

1. North, the titular/main character, is an incredibly unlikable protagonist. He is supposed to be a brilliant kid who had the misfortune of having bad parents who don't care for him, but instead he comes across as a kid with serious ego issues who abandons his parents just because he feels they don't give him the attention he feels he deserves. The only reason he comes back to them is that he felt that his other parents were either not good enough for him or didn't worship him enough. The fact that this movie ends with a dream sequence and racist stereotypes flood it might suggest that North is either a racist or doesn't understand other people's cultures. He is always rude to everyone, even the people who are nice to him.
2. The story makes no sense, and every scene feels rushed and incomplete.
3. Its message is confusing and problematic.
4. Most of the humor and jokes are very offensive, insulting, and forced:
   1. The pants factory joke is painfully unfunny and makes no sense.
   2. There are a lot of stereotypes and racist jokes:
      1. The security hitman Al, who helps North's birth parents after they are no longer comatose, delivers a VHS tape to the Nelsons which is an urgent message (actually a clearly edited one) for North from his birth parents and then even tries to kill North after dumping the Nelsons, is stereotypical.
      2. Every time North is auditioning for new parents, all of them feature startling stupidity and are offensive caricatures. Some examples include:
         1. In Africa, the mother in the grass hut is topless (shown from behind and neckline-up). Also, the people in the scene look offensive.
         2. Seeing Governor Ho make cracks about his wife being "barren" while she's standing right next to him is incredibly offensive. The dirty look she gives him afterward is shocking too.
         3. Most of the Hawaiian residents in the film are topless, the way they dress up is highly offensive and they all look downright stereotypical.
         4. The moment when North's Eskimo parents send his new grandfather off to die on the ice floes along with the other elderly members of the tribe as a "dignified" way to die after they've outlived their value to society is rather symbolic of the film's reputed insensitivity.
         5. Ma and Pa Tex joke about the death of their first son, which is ridiculous, disrespectful, and makes no sense at all since it's actually pretty depressing for people to talk about someone associated with them such as a relative or a friend who died. They also look extremely stereotypical.
         6. In France, they have berets, wine, cigarettes, and Jerry Lewis on all the channels all the time, which is completely appalling.
   3. The joke where the airplane touches the window instead of crashing through it like in Airplane! is not funny at all, as it could have crashed through it and killed a lot of people.
   4. The sex jokes and various expletives are too inappropriate for a movie targeted towards children:
      1. Bruce Willis' line "Your balls (most likely referring to the testicles) stick to your leg like Krazy Glue!" is way too inappropriate for kids.
      2. In particular, the film contains references to pedophilia which are way too inappropriate; for example, when North has a panic attack (which looks more like a heart attack than a real panic attack), his dad says "Here! Loosen his pants!" and there is a billboard in Hawaii that shows an octopus pulling North's swim-shorts up and down. Perhaps the worst example of this is the supposed relationship between Winchell and Judge Buckle.
      3. After North's birth parents are no longer unconscious, they start to spoon.
      4. When Ma Tex bends over, you can see plenty of cleavage.
      5. Arthur Belt orders a drink called "Sex on the Beach".
5. Shameless product placement everywhere, including American Airlines, various arcade games, the board game Clue, Crush soda, Coca-Cola, Nintendo and FedEx.
6. Badly-written and insensitive characters who are migraine-inducing to watch.
7. The movie ends with the clichéd "all just a dream" ending in an attempt to emulate the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz's famous ending, but fails miserably. Besides, Reiner had already emulated that film seven years earlier with The Princess Bride, thus making it something of a rehash, and it ends up making the entire film a waste of time for anyone.
8. Bruce Willis' appearance as a FedEx truck driver comes only two minutes (not enough time to even change costumes) after he plays a comedian named Joey Fingers.
9. Pointless cameos from Bruce Willis, Alexander Godunov, and Kelly McGillis.
10. If you took Bruce Willis out of the film and each of his roles which are the narrator, the Easter Bunny, a cowboy named Gabby, a tourist, sleigh driver, a comedian named Joey Fingers and a FedEx driver, it would still be an abysmal film, regardless.
11. Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus look completely ridiculous as North's parents. It may be because the two co-starred together in Seinfeld, one of the best-known sitcoms of all time when this movie was released. It also means it's a little hard not to imagine them as George Costanza and Elaine Benes, especially on Seinfeld; George and Elaine never date whatsoever in that show, and they're just friends.
12. The idea of a kid with inattentive parents who decides to go into court, free himself of them, and go on a worldwide search for nicer parents is not very good or interesting, and is deeply flawed, as Roger Ebert put it. First off, it is horrible for a movie aimed at children. Second, children don't lightly separate from their parents - and certainly not where the great parental sin is not paying attention to their kid at the dinner table.
13. Many moments, elements, ideas, and plot points are highly illogical, nonsensical, and unrealistic:
    • North owning the Houston Astros MLB team makes no sense, given that he is a child. Children are not allowed to own a sports team or anything in terms of business since they are too young.
    • The line "As of next Monday, no parent will be permitted to see an R-rated movie, unless accompanied by a kid." makes no sense, since it should be the other way around.
    • North's "secret" spot in the mall is no secret at all since it is in the middle of a display room that everyone can see.
    • How can Winchell, who is a literal child, have so much power? That's just puzzling beyond reason. Besides, he is too young to be rich and powerful. It's even too creepy seeing him kiss North on the forehead.
    • You'd never see a minor independently on an airplane since they're always supposed to be accompanied by an adult while on one.
    • The only musical number in the film, the melody of the theme from the TV show Bonanza, makes no sense in context. Bonanza actually took place in Nevada, not Texas. Additionally, Nevada doesn't border Texas and isn't close to a state that is so close to Texas.
      • Also, Ma and Pa Tex's attire looks more like what would be worn at a Las Vegas stage show than anything that any Texan would wear.
    • Arthur Belt first helps out North, but then turns against him and wants to get him killed, which would result in the police arresting him for that.
    • All the children around the world threatening to leave their parents and hire Arthur Belt as their lawyer while blaming North for all their frustrations makes no sense.
    • North accepts a car ride from the narrator at the end of the film despite having only just met him. In reality, it's important to never take car rides with strangers which is one of the first things that children learn.
    • In reality, Winchell would’ve gotten into trouble for being in North’s home since he invaded it.
    • North’s Chinese Family hails him as a boy emperor, but China’s imperial period actually ended in 1911.
    • North buys a hot dog for $1. Hot dogs cost more than that when it was filmed in 1993.
    • It makes no sense for North to have a noon Labor Day deadline to find new parents or return to his original parents so he could begin school with one or the other since by then, most schools have already started the school year.
    • There is no way North could have gotten first-class tickets to every city in the world; first-class tickets are costly.
    • There’s no way that seven weeks could’ve past by that quickly when North walked from the Eskimo house to the ice floes.
    • It would make a lot more sense if North's parents waited for him to show up at his home after they were no longer comatose.
    • Seeing catatonic people on display in a museum makes no sense.
    • Winchell, at first, appears to be North's buddy from school, but he later turns into some evil kid overlord who wants to kill North. In reality, that would get him arrested because he wished death on someone.
    • Winchell doesn’t want North to return to his original parents and considers it impossible, even though North did have an option to return to them.
    • Children constantly holding their parents at emotional gunpoint makes no sense since they would get into a lot of trouble for doing so.
    • Despite providing an extensive definition of Borscht, the movie fails to acknowledge the fact that it's a soup, so it's mostly liquid and unsuitable for distribution via cartons.
    • The airport scene, in which an airport clerk wouldn't let North board the flight because the newspaper she shows to him claims that he is dead and then he is chased by a group of kids but is saved by a FedEx driver, makes no sense.
    • It’s daytime when North leaves the Nelsons at Bedford Hills Station, but nighttime when he arrives at Grand Central Terminal. In reality, taking a train between the two would take at least an hour.
    • There is no way at the end of the film North could've had a silver coin with a hole in his possession that is the same coin he had in his dream.
    • The Eskimos are the most repulsive due to the use of blackface makeup and their backward tradition of leaving their old ones out to die at sea. This is because Kathy Bates & Abe Vigoda were both cast as Eskimos when they were actually white. Also, the last known case of Inuit senicide was in 1939.
14. The narration becomes distracting to let the audience make up their mind and interpretation of what goes on.
15. The film starts out bad in the first act, gets progressively worse in the second act, and just becomes horrifying in the third and final act.
16. Extremely poor dialogue, particularly North's "You seem like nice people, but I don't think I'll be able to get a lot of homework done" line, as well as the defense attorney's "Your honor, the defense rests" line and "Hawaii, is a lush and fertile land. There's only one barren area on all of our islands. Unfortunately, it's Mrs. Ho." Roger Ebert even used that as an example of amazingly tasteless dialogue for the Siskel & Ebert review of this film.
17. There is nothing unique about the film's technical work in Adam Greenberg's cinematography or Robert Leighton's editing that should be worth noting.
18. It is never explained as to why North would leave the Nelsons. It would make more sense if he accepted and stayed with them since they’re a perfect & normal family who are not depicted as being creepy or weird.
19. Kathy Bates and Abe Vigoda look completely ridiculous with blackface makeup when they are Eskimos. Kathy Bates even looks worse with a minstrel wig.
20. Mediocre acting. In particular, Bruce Willis' performance is extremely awkward and Elijah Wood's performance (before playing Frodo from The Lord of the Rings, and Mumble from Happy Feet) as North is really clichéd, bland and uninteresting.
21. The parental behavior that North's parents exhibit comes off as laughable instead of awful.
22. The sets for the film look abysmal (depending on your view), particularly in the Alaskan neighborhood.
23. The film is really gross that you would probably have to shower after seeing it. This is because you would be exposed to really bad stereotyping and other things which aged really badly and was not acceptable back then, and it’s not really acceptable today.
24. Horrible editing. For example, the movie begins with a shot of North's room where he is asleep and features shots of various toys, souvenirs, and gizmos that foreshadow his adventures that serves as the opening credits. Most of them look creepy with the close-up of the big doll looking way too scary before it suddenly cuts to the infamous dinner scene. Shouldn't it have continued with him getting up and going through the day up until that point?
25. When Al is chasing after North in New York City, trying to kill him with a gun, there is no police around to save him.
26. The interior of North’s house looks oddly familiar to that of the Nelsons.
27. It tries too hard to be sophisticated such as a montage of North's record throughout his year at school that showcases his talents, success, and popularity by showing his averages in an American Typewriter font. In the case of acting in school plays, a review from his drama teacher comes across as pretentious and assumptive.
28. The films wastes the talent of so many people with an all-star cast.
29. The film was rated PG by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) for a few words, but it feels more like a PG-13 or an R-rated movie instead. For example, the assassination plot in the third act is quite dark for a light fantasy, the Broscht on both North’s cap and the broken boxes look more like blood, and Ma and Pa Tex mention that a stampede killed their son Buck.
30. The soundtrack by Marc Shaiman is very generic, high-pitched, and sounds more like stock music.
31. Very unfaithful to the source material of the book it is based on.
32. Inappropriate language for a kid's film (eg. "You little asshole!".) Even Winchell questions North if he used the word “hell”.
33. Weak direction by Rob Reiner, the same director as Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally..., Misery, and A Few Good Men, all of which are better films than this.