Remember 'Good Burger'? That movie is sort of still relevant today. If you don't remember 'Good Burger,' it was created in the beginning of when Nickelodeon started making movies. The movie is based off of a sketch of a show that you probably never watched with the stars Keenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell called All That (But they also had a show together called Keenan and Kel). The show came out before I was born, and the movie came out a month after I was born. I've seen the movie more times than I feel anyone should see it (About four times) but each time I ask myself the question "Does it Hold Up?"
Good burger is about Dexter (Played by Keenan) who crashes his parents car into his teacher's (Played by Sinbad) car because he was avoiding a strange man in the middle of the road. We then find out he doesn't have insurance so he gets a job at Good Burger to pay it off. He then meets a silly character named Ed (Played by Kel). The odd couple of Straight Man Dexter and Wise Guy Ed then have to save Good Burger from their rival Mondoplex.
Okay first things first, some of the plot doesn't make sense. Keenan is 15 right? He says so in like the beginning when he crashes into Sinbad's car. But at Good Burger, they decide to hire him as a delivery driver?!? I mean he actually is 20 when this movie came out but he literally says that he doesn't have a license, but they're like "No license? When can you start making deliveries?"
Then we get the classic kids movie thing, they basically list off the supporting characters and show exactly the one defining feature that they have. Spatch is a oaf with a spatula, Otis is the old guy (Played by Abe Vigoda. ABE! YOU'RE BETTER THAN THIS!), Deedee is a vegetarian, Fizz is the white guy who looks like he has severe ADHD, Mr. Bailey(The Boss) is a mamma's boy, Monique is the love interest and Kurt is a prick.
So Kurt is part of the new restaurant across the street: Mondo Burger. They try to put Good Burger out of business by producing a bigger burger with a bigger restaurant.
So it's at this point where you think, "Okay, this is going to go how I think it's going to go. Dexter and Ed are going to get through this. overcoming some huge odds to defeat the system." and if you thought that, you're right. The thing is, there are some classic children movie things that the movie does to get to this point. And this movie has a surprisingly emotional subplot.
You then find out that the person who basically caused Dexter to crash his car was Ed, which causes Dexter to be mean for an extended period of time
The magical plot piece that causes Good Burger to be saved is a sauce that Ed creates to make every good burger (No matter how comparatively small) amazing. This cliche plot device of the least likely person becoming the hero is in way too many movies like Dudley from Harry Potter, Jeff from Jeff who lives at home, The little girl from Signs, sadness from inside out, Jack-Jack from the incredibles and others. Though using this trope is not original, the movie goes into a different direction with it. Even though this trope has been used many many times, this one is different because of Ed is taken advantage of by Dexter even though Ed just wants him to be his friend.
But eventually unsurprisingly Ed and Dexter join forces and destroy Mondoplex using Ed's good heart and raging stupidity and Dexter's relative uselessness. It includes cross-dressing, playing mini-golf like regular golf, a manufacturing plant for Mondoplex and Sinbad.
The learning points that come from this movie are actually profound for what it's worth, forgiving people even though they hurt you, never giving up in the face of adversity and Keenan Thompson is not the best actor.
Overall I know that this movie is pretty bad, but in the right circumstances I would watch it again. It doesn't hold up.
In all honesty the real moral of the story its not bigger is better, its about how you use it the sauce
If you want me to review anything else Movie/TV no matter how bad… Email to Benkessl@umail.iu.edu with the subject “Review”
