Movie Review: Kazaam

Shaquille O'Neal, you guys. He was a Los Angeles Laker. He was 13... maybe 14 feet tall. He ate tacos on TV commercials. Sometimes one of his eyes would just kind of wander off and do its own thing. That's just how he rolls. He's the Shaq attack, baby! He had a video game where he beat up ninjas! He was a thing!

The land of 1996 was a very relaxed kingdom. It was powered by a philosophy of, "There are no dumb questions. Or answers. Nothing is dumb. Every opinion is important and should be acted upon." It was the 'participant' medal of years. So when someone walked into a conference room wearing hammer pants and said, "Let's make a movie where Shaq is a genie", did 1996 say, "You're absolutely fired"? Heck no it didn't! 1996 was all like, "I made a cocaine bet that I could make a movie out of anything anyone suggests, and I'm not losing that bet today."
 

Welcome to "Kazaam"

Francis Capra plays "Max" I mention his name because you need to look him up because he looks really different and you have probably seen him in stuff and not even known it was the same guy. Max is a problem child of the 90's. He skips school. He get's chased by bullies. He idolizes his biological father (who's a criminal), and he's got a whole "You're not my real dad" thing going on with his step-dad that the 90's really relished in. One day he's chased by the aforementioned bullies and finds a boombox with a genie in it named 'Kazaam' (like ya do). This guy only speaks in rhyme, which is not at all annoying, and he's played by world-renowned rapper Shaquille O'Neal. All 19 effin' feet of him.

Kazaam is a pretty crap genie. He initially can't even really use magic because he's been confined for a while and he's rusty. Okay, I'll bite. He eventually uses the power of CGI to make a crappy bike transform magically into a different crappy bike, and then almost obliterates his 'master' with a rain of junk food that is too much for one or a hundred people to consume. The kid eats one candy bar and is pretty much cool after that, leaving thousands of pounds of food to essentially rot in an alley. Where does this food come from? How may starving people could this dirt-child have fed? We'll never know. It's not addressed. World peace isn't even considered as a wish. This kid is just pure gluttony; as long as he has more, he's doing well. Capitalism claims another soul. From there, it's a lot of Shaq pretending he's not 3 stories tall, trying and pull capers, and a super believable story that he's the next big thing in rap music. This is despite the fact that he consistently delivers lines like he has a mouth full of bees. Eventually the bad guy gets control of his genie boombox and tries some stuff that doesn't quite pan out. Eventually, Kazaam transforms him into a basketball and dunks him... No, really.
 

I'm sure that someone was running around 1996 screaming "We have to stop this! WHY ARE WE LIKE THIS!?" But alas, his pleas fell on deaf ears. He no doubt traveled back from the future to prevent a tragic and bloody timeline by stopping production of the movie "Kazaam", but quickly found that we as a people were essentially just in a constant state of waking sleep. Stumbling though our day-to-day lives in a post-Crystal Pepsi world, clad only in neon, going to raves, and enjoying a brief economic up-swing that we will never see again.

He failed in his mission, and presumably died nameless.
 

Now am I saying that 'Kazaam' being filmed by human beings and released for people to watch with their human eyes is directly responsible for the rise of hatred, nationalism, and the overall collapse of our nation? The numbers are still coming in. Nothing can be said for certain. Draw your own conclusions. The evidence is there. Have you even seen Zeitgeist? Open your eyes, sheeple.
Kazaam doesn't get a rating, as it was not a movie. It was an event. A big, flashy, dumb thing that occurred. We flew to close to the sun, and Shaq caught us in his big muscle-y arms. When you fall down a flight of stairs, breaking your arm and biting though your own tongue, typically you don't rate it out of five.

That being said, actually do watch it. Drink and watch it. Gather your loved ones, and order a sixer of Zima from Japan. Shaq gon' make everything okay.