My Review of "Imagine That"

Imagine That came out back in 2009. This isn't that long ago yet there is one character in this movie that is quite offensive. They definitely would have had to make many changes to this movie if they wanted to make this movie today. Overall, it is a run of the mill family friendly classic from Eddie Murphy though.

This movie starts out with the main character Evan. You can see him going crazy and it's all over something called a goo-gah. He's thrown onto the streets with a blanket over his head and his daughter Olivia starts to narrate the movie. She basically tells us that her dad has lost his ways and basically lost in life now.

We then see what he was like only a few months beforehand. He's basically a high ranking wall street guy who tries to win over clients in using his stock opinions. Lately Evan has been a little cold in his predictions and there's this new hotshot that seems to be stealing all of his clients away with his hokey sayings.

This character is actually his enemy by the name of Johnny. Why I say this character is offensive is because he's basically a Caucasian man that claims that he's an indigenous man. He goes by the full name of Johnny Whitefeather. Already, I'm a little uneasy about the movie because he starts doing stereotypical aboriginal chants and uses stereotypical sayings in puns to help him sell stocks. I couldn't believe it because this wasn't that long ago in 2009. I'm glad we're a little ahead of this by now and we're aware of these issues but jeez this was bad.

Anyways in the movie Olivia tries to build a relationship with her dad but Evan isn't having it. He cares more about his career than hanging out with his daughter. This is until he discovers that Olivia has these imaginary friends that seem to be getting a lot of stock options correct. He soon starts to believe in his daughter's imaginary friend's opinions as they never seem to be wrong.

Pretty soon he really starts taking advantage of his daughter's ability to predict stock options and really hams it up as he's succeeding at work. As he's basking in glory he inadvertently grows a relationship with his daughter. It's pretty much a classic Eddie Murphy family friendly movie that we all expect. It's formula but it works.

Again the only issue I have in this movie is the portrayal of the fake indigenous man but this kind of gets resolved later on in the movie. Still he went through most of the movie like that and had us question the character through most of the movie. It really took me away from the viewing experience. At least they did have some reprieve at the end of the movie with this character but oh was this awkward.

I was still able to enjoy this movie though only by so much. All of the characters are pretty amicable and charismatic. The Olivia and Evan in particular steal the show and rightfully so because it is their movie. If it wasn't for them this movie would probably crumble into unwatchable territory.

Overall, I thought that this was just an acceptable viewing for me but only barely. This movie didn't last the test of time and really depends on the charisma of the lead characters. Thankfully the lead characters were able to carry this movie. I have to give this movie a 6 out of 10. I definitely won't be making multiple viewings of this movie though.