I fucking love Bill Murray. That’s all I got for the opening of this post and frankly it is all I need to open this post. Bill Murray is the man, everything he does is amazing, except for like Garfield and Osmosis Jones, but all if forgiven for his body of work. It’s also like 100 degrees outside, Fahrenheit not Celsius or Kelvin, so Meatballs seems like a proper choice for today with it’s theme summer camp shenanigans and wholesome, raunchy 70s humor. Also Bill Murray is in this movie as he is the shit, as I stated earlier.
Bill Murray stars as Tripper, the head counselor who runs things at Camp Northstar with the help of his love interest Roxanne (Kate Lynch) and the camp’s director Morty (Harvey Atkins), who is affectionately known as Mickey. Camp opens with Tripper and Morty preparing the misfit counselors-in-training — Spaz, Fink, Crockett, A.L., Candace, Wendy, and Wheels among them — for the arrival of their hyperactive little charges. After settling in, kids and counselors begin their activities with a soccer game in which depressed 11-year-old Rudy (Chris Makepeace) accidentally loses the game. Cast out by the other children, Rudy runs away only to come across Tripper, who befriends the boy and makes him his running partner. Romance, sexy fun, and comic hijinx — usually with the heavy-sleeping Morty as their target — lead up to an annual Olympiad in which Camp Northstar battles the wealthier and athletically superior residents of Camp Mohawk. The challenging events include cup stacking, potato-sack racing, and a nauseating hot dog-eating contest in which the portly Fink devours his way to victory. With the two-day event tied up, it comes down to the cross-country run, in which Tripper enters Rudy. ~ Patrick Legare, Rovi
There isn’t really much to say about Meatballs other than the scenes that don’t have Bil; Murray in them are the weaker aspects of the movie. The young cast doesn’t really have the delivery skills or comedic timing that Murray does as the camp counselor Tripper. Still, the films does follow your typical summer camp film where teens get into all sorts of trouble will being general horn dogs with the ladies of the camp. To top it off, there is also a rich kids camp where the “losers” must battle them in a summer camp showdown. I guess rich kid camps were all the rage in the late 70s and early 80s since that seems to be a main staple of summer camp movies.
The heart of the film comes from Bill Murray and director Ivan Reitman. This team is absolutely amazing in taking the mundane cliche of summer camp summer movies and giving it a bit of cynicism and raunch that is the staple of comedy hijinks. The troubles, scenarios and characters all feel natural and just a part of the films charm, but Murray really just shines with the dynamic comedic skills that are missing from today’s “hijinks ensue” comedy formula.
It’s a campy summer movie (sorry for the pun) that moves along nicely with Murray delivering solid comedic lines and generally being the man that I have come to admire. Ivan Reitman takes the formulaic nature of summer camp movies, gives it a bit more arch with Murray, and ends up being a refreshing summer movie that doesn’t seem too familiar. Sure the plot beats are things we have seen before, but it’s done nicely with strong comedic acting and very humorous scenes that are peppered throughout the movie.
