Hi, welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your order?
Oh, sorry, I’ve just had that drilled in my head from how many times I heard that line throughout the movie, “Good Burger,” another badly reviewed movie that deserves justice. For any Nickelodeon kids, this movie’s a classic. For any other kids growing up with Cartoon Network, Disney Junior, Disney Channel, or a TV channel of the sort, you may or may not be familiar with it.
With me growing up on “Sophia the First” and “Imagination Movers,” I had only heard of this film often enough to know its name and not much else. On Rotten Tomatoes, this film sits at 33% on the Tomatometer and 64% on the Popcornmeter: Not great numbers in the grand scheme of things. Especially since “A Minecraft Movie” sits just a little bit higher on both scales (well deserved and you know it).
For those like me, the plot of this movie is pretty simple: A careless and carefree high schooler by the name of Dexter Reed takes on a summer job in order to pay back his teacher after wrecking into his car. The job he takes up is at the Good Burger restaurant, where he becomes friends with Ed, a longstanding employee and an individual with a little bit lower than average IQ. While Reed tries to work enough to make back the money, he and Ed also have to combat Mondo Burger, a commercial burger place across the street known for its huge burgers, and survive its corporate schemes.
If I can say anything, it’s that this movie was never made to be critically acclaimed. Many critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes say its comedy is so stupid that it was funny in a few parts (I bet it was the grape nose man bit, if you know what I’m talking about), and some others just called it plain stupid. One of my favorites on the negative side was written by one Mal Vincent from The Virginian-Pilot, stating “Your tolerance for this may be aligned directly to either your age or your IQ.” From the lack of fun in this guy’s review, I bet his favorite movie is “The Green Mile.” But there were a few critics who gave it a big tomato, like Stephen Hunter from The Washington Post, stating, “Anyone who doesn’t smile is probably either too adult to count or too dead to care.” Take that, Mr. Vincent!
But at the end of the day, “Good Burger” is obviously made for children and maybe teens to watch, so the jokes and humor in it are more dimwitted or ridiculous than your modern comedy, but it does take the time to slip some more “adult elements’ in there, like a very flirty woman and Reed and Ed being thrown into an insane asylum after trying to expose Mondo Burger for using an illegal substance to enlarge their patties. Either it was a strategy to make the movie enjoyable to watch for the whole family, or the writers just said: “why not?”
So in all fairness, a 33% on the Tomatometer makes sense. There are no deeper themes past finding friendship in unexpected places and being patient with those around you. But the Popcornmeter? That was surprising to me, to only be at 64%. Granted, the playfulness of this film is obviously not for everyone. More thought-out jokes seem to be more enjoyable for the majority of serious film-goers, but come on. It deserves at least a 75%, maybe 80% if we’re feeling lucky.
From the majority of the five-star reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, people call it a hysterical comedy or just a fun watch: Man, even half the reviews were just “Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your order?” Does that not scream love of the game to you? That’s almost as classic as saying “say hello to my little friend.”
But then you have some who call it hard to get through from how annoying it is, or that its age shows in a bad way: One reviewer called it psychological torture, even though that’s a step too far. The only movie I’ve ever watched that was psychologically torturous was “The Undertone” (stay tuned, I have a lot to say about that movie too), and even then I can admit I can live with its existence most of the time.
I am an enjoyer of ridiculous antics and stupid comedy: That’s about half of my personality, anyways, so needless to say I love this movie. You ever in need of a laugh, you know where to go. It comes as a shock to people that I made it without watching this movie even once for twenty years and lived, but now I can say I found yet another “bad” movie exceeding my expectations. Plus it added a few more vocal stims to my index, so if anyone hears me say “I just tackled this old lady” or “strawberry jacuzzi!” I hope they don’t think I’m insane.
Hayley Doda can be contacted at
hayley@kscequinox.com
