Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

(1996)

I know the word “Fun!” on the poster art is an actual cited quote but the presence of the quotation marks makes it look like it’s implying this film is a facsimile of “fun” or something that could technically be considered a type of fun by certain weirdos. Whatever your conclusion may be as to what is implied by “Fun!” in quotations, I want you to know I completely agree with you.

Critics were not kind to Kazaam. I suppose I can understand the criticisms. I just can’t imagine what highfalutin critics are expecting with this film though. It stars the kid from Free Willy 2 and a basketball player the size of the Washington monument.

This wasn’t going to blow their socks off. It’s just a cute hour and a half story about a kid and his genie. I feel compelled to defend this film against these critic bullies the same way Shaq defended the kid from the school bullies who also had connections to an unscrupulous talent agency. Just like bullies in real life!

I can’t count how many times some jerk would be picking on me at school one second and the next second they’re selling pirated music for my dad’s shady music label. Oh how I wish my dad would stop secretly recording musicians and selling bootleg albums on the streets of New York and just come home and be a real non-sleazy dad who actually loved my mom and me. Just kidding, my dad’s fine.

Regardless, I think all kids have this same wish deep down inside, however upstanding their dads may be, but getting that wish granted is just not real life. Your dad is going to employ YOUR bullies to sell burnt cds to random passersby all over Brooklyn for the rest of your life and you’re just going to have to live with that.

That is unless you find a genie inside a magic boombox. Unfortunately this genie isn’t just immediately able to inflict on people’s free will. He’s gotta be Djinn for that. Yes, this movie brings in the concept of Djinn. Look it up if you want. I’m not going to get into it here. This really doesn’t belong in this film considering its audience. I think they should have just made up some other kind of “angel gets his wings” concept and given it a completely made-up name. It’s not that the Djinn thing is inherently bad, it’s just majorly misrepresented here and it’s an iceberg for which this particular film has no right to be sparking interest. It’s not a deal breaker for me. It’s just clear to me the writers found this cool word in their pre-Islamic Arabian story books and decided to use it without any prior nor subsequent knowledge.

Speaking of sleazy dads: Step-parents get a bad rap. Instead of the kids being universally mad at both parents for inflicting necessary rules and regulations, they instead direct that frustration completely toward the step-parent, as if all the suddenly enforced rules are the step-parent’s fault. In reality the biological parent probably had a difficult time establishing rules because the other biological parent was either not helping or, worse yet, going out of their way to counteract said domestic expectations. Or worser still, the other parent was paying school bullies to operate an illegal music production racket.

Basically I’m saying this kid’s actual dad seemed like a skuzbucket and the guy his mom was marrying seemed on the level. The kid could have had a decent situation with the new guy in the picture. No Djinn necessary. No genie promising granted wishes only to get wrapped up in his own suspiciously successful rap career. Ah, but I suppose then there would be no story.

Is this film convoluted hackneyed clap-trap? Yes. But it’s utterly inoffensive, mildly entertaining clap-trap with a decent message at the end. I don’t know why big-name critics wasted their time watching this. They knew they were going to hate it. I, on the other hand, know exactly why I wasted my time watching this. It pacified my brain for an hour and a half and made me giggle every so often. Some things you just need to not take so seriously.

Another subject that is fascinating which I’m not going to get into here is this film’s pertinence to the Mandela Effect. I let you go down that rabbit hole yourself though.