Bonnie O'Connor Even if I had not seen reviews from Siskel and Ebert or Doug Walker, I'd likely come to the same conclusion about how embarrassingly awful this movie is. The plot is about a boy named North who divorces his parents and travels the world to seek out new parents. Okay the plot sounds interesting, so why is it so horrible? It's when he starts traveling the world where everything becomes wrong. First he goes to Texas where everyone is a stereotypical cowboy in fancy costumes, accents, all about being big, and an awful country song. The whole scene makes me wonder if Reba McEntire felt dirty (being from Oklahoma) about her scene and if Dan Aykroyd (Canadian born) had to write an apology letter for not portraying anyone from Texas right. Then he goes to Hawaii where everyone dresses in grass, flowers, shirts, and eager to show off North's butt. Not kidding. And then he goes to possibly the most offensive stereotypical scene in the movie: Alaska, where everyone lives in Flintstone-like igloos, Kathy Bates slaps on make-up to look Alaskan, and the elderly are cruelly sent away on ice blocks for no other reason than they're such an embarrassment to the society. I try to be forgiving of some movies people deem "racist" because I often believe that the writers directors didn't intend for it (like Phantom Menace or Willy Wonka) or I just don't recognize it as well as others. But this movie has absolutely no excuse. There's no subtly about what culture they're mocking, and when it tries to represent real life it is humiliating and hard to watch. On top of that, the parents themselves are horrible (even taking out the racism). One set wants to fatten the boy, the other wants to show off his butt, the next wants to get rid of his would-be grandfather, and so on. And it never explains how he signed up for these parents in the first place. He just flies to their "village" and temporarily lives with them. As for his real parents: they're just plain unfunny. Every joke written for them falls flat and makes no sense, which is a tragedy since they're played by funny actors. Eventually it reveals that the whole thing was just a dream. I guess you can say that it explains the stereotypes, but it also means that the director thinks he could get away with it. Also, it indicates that the entire movie was frustratingly pointless. Also, I'm pretty sure that any nine year old boy (American or not) would know that these places are nothing like this movie. If I had to say anything good about this movie it is that the actor of North (Elijah Wood) gives a really good performance, and of course would lead him to go star in better roles. In fact all the actors are really good and try to give a great performance, even if the script and jokes fall flat. Even Bruce Willis who has to wear a bunny costume, cowboy outfit, Federal Express outfit, and so on actually tries to be dignified in his role, even though the script failed him. Also that awful song in the Texas scene is a reminder that Reba and Dan are terrific singers.Sadly, none of the great performances could save this movie. It's pure racist garbage. I don't care if Rob Reiner's father believed in "laughing at themselves", this movie is where none of the jokes work and come out as offensive for kids and adults.

Jack Kierski The film North (which was released on July 22, 1994) features a comedy-drama-adventure plot written by Alan Zweibel and Andrew Scheinman and directed by Rob Reiner. The story is based on the novel North: The Tale of a 9-Year-Old Boy Who Becomes a Free Agent and Travels the World in Search of the Perfect Parents by Alan Zweibel. North was Rob Reiner's first recent family-friendly movie. Rob Reiner also directed the greats such as "This is Spinal Tap (1984)", "Misery (1990)", and "A Few Good Men (1992)".The film stars a talented then 13-year old actor Elijah Wood as the main protagonist, North. At the time the film was released in 1994, Elijah Wood was starting to become a somewhat well known celebrity. The film also stars Jon Lovitz, Jason Alexander, Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Kathy Bates, Faith Ford, Graham Greene, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Reba McEntire, John Ritter, and Abe Vigoda. It is also Scarlett Johansson's debut film, who's gone on to be considered one of the sexiest actresses of our era . North (Elijah Wood) is a eleven year old kid, with busy parents (Julia Louis Dreyfus & Jason Alexander) not giving him the attention he needs. So, North and his lawyer Arthur Belt (Jon Lovitz) file a lawsuit against them. The judge played by Alan Arkin decides that North should either find new parents or return to his own parents by Labor Day – a deadline of two months. If he hasn't found new parents or returned to his by the deadline, he will be sent to an orphanage. So North sets out traveling the world in search of parents who really care about him. His first stop is Texas where he takes a shot at getting to know potentially new parents played by Dan Aykroyd & Reba McEntire. That doesn't work out very well and he moves on to Hawaii and Alaska where he meets an Eskimo mother played by Oscar-winning movie actress Kathy Bates. The parents he encounters in the movie aren't funny, although they aren't serious and turn out not to be helpful to North. Either way, I believe the actors in the movie don't play their characters in the humorous way needed. The film is narrated by Bruce Willis in the form of a mysterious characters who follows North throughout the movie in various character forms - the Easter bunny, a Texan cowboy, a beach bum and a Fed-Ex driver. The narrator first meets North at a mall wearing an Easter bunny costume a role difficult to reconcile with Willis' usual tough-guy role. His role as narrator in the film really falls short. The narrator, in my mind, is not helpful to the movie. One example of this is the way that the narrator verbalizes to North about his terrible parents. Rob Reiner's biggest mistake as a film director takes place with creation of this motion picture, a mistake he himself acknowledged: "North is one of the worst movie that I have ever seen in my life!". I feel sorry for Rob Reiner with respect to his directing of this film, but he, of course, was unaware while directing the film that it would turn out as bad as it did and he probably shouldn't have even made the film whose greatest weakness is the screenplay and film production itself. (Alan Zweibel and Andrew Scheinman also produced the film.)The film North has one of the stupidest stories ever and I disliked every character portrayed in the movie. Even the film was really poor, I still respect Rob Reiner because it is his only failure of a movie; the only truly bad film he's ever directed. Here's my advice: "Do not watch this film! However, you could watch it just to see how bad the movie truly is!" I give that film a 0 out of 4 stars!

ejonconrad I'll admit, I'm a fan and a connoisseur of bad movies, and I only watched this because I read Ebert's famous "hated, hated, hated" review. I figured anything that bad had to be at least interesting. Unfortunately, Ebert's review is far more memorable than the movie itself, and probably gave it a lot more attention than it deserved. The movie isn't bad in any really notable or entertaining way, just lame, annoying, and ultimately forgettable. It poses an interesting question; namely, what makes one movie "quirky and charming" and another - well, this? After all, some of the best movies by people like the Coen Brothers or Wes Anderson have fantastical characters and plot elements, and are occasionally mean- spirited. In contrast, this movie falls flat at every turn. There's not a *single* funny line or likable character, but the quality of the acting and production is high enough that it even fails to be "so bad it's good". Oddly, I think the movie it reminded of most was Myra Breckinridge. Both movies are similarly colorful, surreal, remarkably star-studded, completely unfunny, and genuinely unpleasant to watch. Of course, unlike Myra Breckinridge, this was supposed to be a kids' movie!It's lucky that Rob Reiner has so many other great movie to his credit, and generally comes across as a likable guy. Not everyone would be forgiven for this.

Gavin Cresswell (gavin-thelordofthefu-48-460297) Just to make one thing clear before I review this: I never heard or watched this film before. I mean, I was born in the 90s, but I didn't even know this came out the same year as Disney's The Lion King, one of my personal childhood favorites. What really drew my attention to it was not only the Nostalgia Critic review, but the Siskel & Ebert review. At first, I thought it was gonna be one of those average family comedies, but given the quote from Siskel & Ebert themselves (It's junk. First class junk. It's a movie that makes me cringe even when I'm sitting here thinking about it.), I'm personally at their side now.I thought it had a creative, but somewhat sad and unrealistic premise: A boy who leaves his neglected parents and searches all over the world for better ones. It has a talented cast including Bruce Willis, Jason Alexander, and others and one of the greatest directors of all time Rob Reiner who made such great hits like Misery, When Harry Met Sally, and The Princess Bride. But, when I watched the whole thing online, I became shocked at how unbelievably cruel and horrendous this movie is and is by far the director's embarrassing project that he had ever done in the history of filmmaking. However, I don't think it's the worse for there are some nice scenery throughout the film and I think I like the Texas song sequence sang by Reba McEntire. Apparently, those redeeming qualities are completely ruined by it's flaws especially it's lazy and cheap cop-out ending. Like I said before, it has a talented cast, but they seem to be wasted by a terrible script, unfunny one-liners, and clumsy direction from Rob Reiner. The characters are poorly conceived. I don't hate Elijah Wood, but I did find him rather obnoxious here and the music from Marc Shaiman is instantly forgettable. Even the story is thinly plotted it doesn't try what it wants to be.Overall, North isn't the worse movie I've seen, but it's still a horrible movie that needs to be avoided at all costs.