Imagine That

I cannot predict how kids will react to Imagine That. Despite the fact that the film is a Nickelodeon production, and features a family-friendly theme of a father and young daughter bonding with the aid of the child's imaginary friends, the movie too frequently gets bogged down in adult-oriented subject matter that will have young viewers squirming in their seats. I doubt many kids care about corporate investments, and buying and trading company stock. Given many people's current economic situation, most adults probably don't want to hear that stuff when they escape to the movies, either.

I can't say how kids will respond to the movie, but I can say how I did. I can't quite recommend it, but I did like it more than some of Eddie Murphy's more recent films. He's more reigned in and likable here. He's been doing a lot of character work lately, hiding behind fat suits, nerdy glasses, and CG donkeys. These disguises gave him an opportunity to go nuts, often with obnoxious results. He gets to be a little more vulnerable here as he plays Evan Danielson, an investment analyst for a major corporation, who also happens to be a workaholic single father with a seven-year-old daughter named Olivia (Yara Shahidi) from a past marriage. He has little time for the kid, as his entire life is devoted to the company, and moving up in the business world. His main competition within the company comes from John Whitefeather (Thomas Haden Church), a smarmy phony who relies on Native American mysticism to impress his bosses and clients. Church is very funny as the rival, spouting such lines as, "It's not the paint that makes the warrior", and invoking the "dream sparrow" during corporate meetings. He's the one element of comic invention in an otherwise mundane screenplay by Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson (best known from writing the Bill and Ted films of the late 80s and early 90s).

Whenever Whitefeater isn't on the screen, the business scenes drag on. Fortunately, things pick up a little whenever young Olivia shows up, and the movie focuses on her relationship with her father. Olivia is an imaginative child, who frequently goes off to an imaginary world of princesses, queens, and dragons with the aid of her special security blanket that she always carries with her. One day, when Evan takes her to work with him, he discovers that these seemingly imaginary friends she talks to hold inside trader info that can give him a leg up on the competition. Evan doesn't understand it, but the corporate advice his little girl claims she got from the "princesses" always leads him in the right direction. This leads to Evan wanting to know more about these games his daughter plays with these imaginary playmates, and he begins entering her world and playing alongside her. Their relationship grows, they start spending more time together, and it leads to a lot of sweet and likable moments that work thanks to the chemistry of Murphy and rising child actor, Shahidi.

Young Yara Shahidi is definitely a promising relative newcomer. Her performance as Olivia seems like a real child. She never seems to be trying to act cute, or is forced. She also manages to get as many laughs as Murphy does during their scenes together. Imagine That has a certain low-key sweetness to these scenes that I liked. But director Karey Kirkpatrick (Over the Hedge) often is a little too low key for his own good. The movie never quite takes off, is never as imaginative as it could or should be, and never delivers on the really big laughs that we expect. The laughs that are there are small ones. It's all a little too predictable, too laid-back, and certainly too stretched out, with a nearly two hour running time. I never got restless while watching it, but I was often thinking that the movie could have used a jolt of energy somewhere. It's pleasant and it's sweet, but it never really stands out like it should.

It also starts to lose its way in the last half hour or so. Up until that point, the movie had been fairly sweet and unassuming. Then it suddenly tries to be a madcap comedy with Murphy frequently mugging for the camera, getting beat up by kids, and a climax where he has to race in order to make it to his daughter's school sing on time. This is not only tired material, but Murphy also loses the subtlety in his performance that I was enjoying. He no longer came across as a father, but instead a magnet for pratfalls and slapstick gags. This part of the film also involves Martin Sheen in a cameo that didn't need him in the first place. We smile when we first see Sheen show up, and we wait for the movie to give him something to do, but it never does. The role could have been filled by anyone, and wouldn't have changed a thing. Maybe the filmmakers thought the movie needed one more famous face, but it didn't work for me.

This is very much a middle of the road movie. It never offends, but it's not very memorable. If anything, the writers should have taken their own title to heart, and added a lot more imagination to the script. Imagine That never quite gets off the ground, but it does introduce us to a promising young actress, and reminds us that Eddie Murphy can still be likable when he's reigned in. For some people, that may be enough.

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