"Hundreds of Beavers" Novel, Funny, Bizarre, With a Slow Start

     What? What? What? I don't think a green screen has ever been stretched to these levels before, and I'm just kind of in awe that in the end they made a functioning movie. This movie is far from flawed, frankly I'll say it straight with my chest that it gets kind of boring sometimes. But when this movie finally hits its stride and starts rolling like a giant ball of snow, it never really stops. The odds were completely against it. This movie has no dialogue, it's black and white, it relies almost entirely slapstick comedy, yet it works. Let's talk about it.

    Now don't get it twisted, I think this movie has its flaws. First of all, I know it's kind of funny that they don't do any sort of introductory credits until 30 minutes in, but regardless of the gag it takes them way too long for the introductory credits to begin. Certainly, there's some real novelty to the beginning of this film. They sing a surprisingly good song, there's this funny bit about alcoholism, and for a while you're content watching a drunkard learn to survive in the wilderness that beats him at every turn, all without dialogue. The only issue? By a while I mean about 5-10 minutes because after that you start to feel really bad for the dude.

    Even then, once Jean is found by the master trapper it's still an oddly slow, plodding film. Your attention begins to wane, there are some funny gags to be sure, but the batting rate is like 30% or 25% at best (I know this is actually a fine batting average but it's bad jokes-wise). That is until Jean is finally left alone to fend for himself once more, and you watch him slowly but surely crawl his way out of the pathetic hole the movie first began with him in. He kills one animal here or there, he starts making real progress with the traders daughter, and you almost start rooting for him.

    It is in that sense, and I can't believe I'm saying this, that this movie is like a video game, and it is for the better. It reminds me of plenty of RPG's I've played before, where you start off really weak and it's a real grind as you just replay checkpoints over and over again as you get a good feel for the game. Then as you progress everything starts becoming easier, you start becoming bolder, and it just feels good to progress. That's how it felt watching Jean slowly level up and gain new weapons to fight the beavers with, which I assume is how it was supposed to feel anyways.

    I mean it's not like this movie exactly tries to hide any sort of video game influence. One of the final scenes where Jean is fighting all of these beavers through the labyrinthian fortress felt straight out of a platformer or something I've played before, and I mean that as a compliment. Speaking of which, I think the final like quarter or third of the film is pretty great. By then the action is just there, and you're no longer just watching Jean meander around. Look I'm not saying this film should be even shorter than it already is, but frankly if you just sped up the first half this movie might be even better than it already is.

    It just has this charm to it. Whether it's the singing and animation at the beginning. These long running gags from the beginning having very rewarding payoffs later on in the film. It all feels oddly well-thought out. Yet the film still has this almost comforting low-quality feel to it. Not in the sense that it feels cheap, but in the sense that it helps this film feel pretty gimmicky in a good way. It's slapstick, you don't need Marvel CGI to sell it. Though, I don't know if it needed to be in black and white. Can I honestly say it felt necessary? Not really. Maybe it helped it feel more like winter, but it was a choice I neither hated nor felt improved the viewing experience.

Final Score: 75/100

    I was so ready to give this movie like a 60 for trying. Or maybe like a 55. Like it was novel, it had it's moments, but it dragged on quite hard at the beginning and was clearly a little too dull. But I must admit once all the Beavers started turning into a Beaver mech by the end I had no choice but to concede that this film was pretty surreal and ridiculous. On a side note, if you live in Canada as I do, or watch this movie through Amazon Prime Video maybe think about turning off captions. I don't know who did them but they're not only hilariously inaccurate, but also like terribly timed as well, as if they're some pirated streaming site. I don't get it. Either way, even just for the novelty factor, I think this film is worth watching at least once, just because it tried something so radically different. I mean how often do you see films like this anymore?