CNS Movie Review: Herbie: Fully Loaded

Herbie: Fully Loaded

By David DiCerto
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Everyone's favorite "Love Bug" is back in the cheerful family comedy "Herbie: Fully Loaded" (Disney).

Disney has gotten a lot of mileage out of the magical white Volkswagen Beetle -- with its trademark number "53" and plucky "personality" -- since it first drove onto the screen in 1969, including several lesser sequels and television movies.

Set in Southern California, the film stars Lindsay Lohan as Maggie Peyton, a spunky valley girl who comes from a three-generation family of stock car drivers. She wants to race like older brother Ray Jr. (Breckin Meyer), but her widower dad, Ray Sr. (Michael Keaton), thinks it's too dangerous.

As a college graduation gift, Ray Sr. offers to buy Maggie a car before she heads off to New York in the fall for a job at ESPN. He brings her to the local junkyard and gives her the pick of the lot.

Fate intercedes and she winds up with Herbie, who has fallen into disrepair. (An opening sequence recaps the earlier films, charting the anthropomorphic auto's downturn from four-wheel phenom to scrapheap has-been.)

By the final lap, Herbie works his magic and helps Maggie live her dream of being a NASCAR driver, saving her dad's struggling racing team in the process.

Matt Dillon has fun hamming it up as slimy speedster Trip Murphy, the reigning NASCAR champ who's out "to squash a bug" after Maggie and Herbie humiliate him in a drag race. (Several real-life NASCAR drivers make cameos, including Jeff Gordon.)

Despite her bad-girl reputation off screen, Lohan radiates a breezy effervescence and is at her most appealing since "Freaky Friday." (Though in her baseball cap and skateboard couture, she barely looks old enough to be graduating from high school, let alone college.)

Justin Long plays nice-guy mechanic Kevin, who's also bitten by a different kind of love bug.

Though mugging his way through his scenes, Keaton is, nevertheless, likable.

But the show belongs to the pint-sized Herbie, whose personality is conveyed less through digital effects than old-fashioned puppetry, including "winking" headlights and a "smiling" fender. He even gets a girlfriend, a shiny yellow New Beetle.

Rather than trying for a too-hip updating, director Angela Robinson wisely strives to capture the freewheeling slapstick fun and blithe charm and spirit of the earlier films. In fact, the plot borrows heavily from the 1969 original.

The "Fully Loaded" in the title must refer to the soundtrack which is fully loaded with hits from the 1970s and '80s that pad the lean script.

Never taking itself too seriously, "Herbie: Fully Loaded" imparts a lighthearted underdog message about friendship, loyalty, honesty and the bonds of family.

And while by no means destined to be a classic kids movie, it is satisfyingly entertaining and packs enough heart under its hood to make for an enjoyable ride. (Very young tykes may be disturbed, though, by a scene at a demolition derby during which a monster truck threatens to crush the lovable Love Bug.)

The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-I -- general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is G -- general audience.

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DiCerto is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

END

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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