Can of Worms (1999)

Been a little while since I last covered a Disney movie thanks to being really busy for pretty much all of July, and even longer since I last covered a Disney Channel Original Movie because I mostly thought I'd worked my way through all the ones on my Watchlist to be honest... but hidden amongst my picks is this odd little Sci-Fi DCOM from 1999; Can of Worms - a movie about a teen who accidentally summons aliens to Earth when he gets fed up of living there and gets "more than he bargained for". This genuinely looks like quite an strange little movie and is apparently one of the few DCOM's to be rated TV-PG... ooooh edgy...! But genuinely, most of the time these tend to be pretty decent, if not a little bit formulaic, and I don't think I've watched a bad one yet. They're usually kind of fun.

The movie literally opens with Mike Pillsbury (Michael Shulman) broadcasting a message into space proclaiming that he is "being held against his will" on Earth and asking "you must save me." cutting straight to the chase I guess, but then we flashback to 2 weeks earlier and learn that Mike, a self-styled computer nerd and purveyor of entertaining stories about alien conflicts, is seemingly struggling with some complicated feelings about belonging, not helped by his overbearing Father, Dana (Garrett M. Brown) insisting he play football when he, by his own admission, is not very good at it. Football does serve to introduce Mike to pretty cheerleader Katelyn Sandman (Erika Christensen) though who also just so happens to be the object of desire for School Alpha-male Scott Schriebner (Marcus Turner) and after Katelyn enlists Mike help in decorating the gym for the Halloween dance and the pair start to develop a bond, Scott and his jock friends sabotage Mike's audio-vis installation causing it to malfunction and in the process, embarrass him in front of everybody at the dance. Obviously deeply traumatised by the experience Mike sets his transmitting equipment up in the yard and we are back at the beginning of the movie with him broadcasting his message. The laughing stock of the school now... for... some reason... and his relationship with Katelyn well and truly ruined, Mike goes to mope in his treehouse when he is visited by Barnabus (Voice: Malcolm McDowell - seriously this guy keeps popping up on my blog?!) a alien from outer space resembling a dog. Barnabus informs Mike he is here to rescue him as per his message, but Mike believing that he has finally cracked and is hallucinating refuses to believe Barnabus is even real and dashes off, despite Barnabus warning him that other aliens are planning to visit him and maybe don't have his best interests in mind... Believing that he just needs some food, Mike fixes himself some lunch, sits down to eat it at his computer but then gets a visit from the slimy, discombobulated form of The Bom (Voice: Bruce Lanoil) who is basically just really gross and distracts Mike with really gross stuff like burping and farting whilst he's on the phone to an apologetic Katelyn. Phone call thoroughly ruined, The Bom explains that he is the alien equivalent of a lawyer and that he wants to help Mike sue the Earth government... Despite offering a superior fee structure, Mike declines and The Bom storms off in a tantrum claiming he intends to sue Mike for wasting his time. He was just really disgusting to be honest and now I feel a bit ill... Swiftly moving on, Mike bumps into Barnabus again, and when Mike mentions he was visited by The Bom, Barnabus warns him that he has opened up a "can of worms" and that the whole universe now knows that Earth has progressed to a higher technological state. He warns Mike that they really need to leave and Mike is eventually persuaded but first wants to say goodbye to Katelyn. He goes to visit her where she agrees to give him a second chance, but their talk is interrupted by the appearance of The Loafer, an equally as weird looking but not quite as disgusting alien that wants to serialise Mike's life into a TV series. When Mike finally shakes him off, and he disappears in a huff, Mike misses the opportunity to speak to Katelyn who believes Mike stood her up. As Mike continues to struggle with his own feelings of not belonging, him and his pal Nick (Adam Wylie) are hanging out in his treehouse when he gets visited by a whole host of different aliens, all with their own agendas for what they want from Mike. One of them has a crush on him which is genuinely quite amusing. Later that evening Mike makes the decision to leave and cut a deal with one of the alien visitors, despite Nick trying to convince him otherwise and is all packed to go until Katelyn knocks on his door. Mike apologies and says goodbye but Katelyn sticks around, obviously not believing Mike's story that he's about to depart Earth with an alien... but she is soon brought round to the reality when she follows Mike into the garden, who, is on the cusp of agreeing a deal with the intergalactic visitors when they are all scared off by the appearance of the Thoad. Barnabus explains that the Thoad are the worst of the worst; aliens that visit other worlds to collect specimens and that once they know about Earth, more and more Thoad will visit and more and more 'specimens' will be abducted. The arriving Thoad abducts Nick's younger brother, Jay (Andrew Ducote) who just so happened to pay a visit at precisely the wrong time! After Barnabus explains that the Thoad will be back for a "perfect specimen" Mike hatches a plan to lure Scott Schriebner to his yard, and when Scott turns up, Mike calls his bluff into helping them get Jay back. Scott seemingly just believing right away that Barnabus is a talking dog alien and that a giant tentacle monster abducts small children from Earth... Heading inside the treehouse, if Scott did have any doubts before, they are quickly put to rest when inside a Thoad portal is already open. The Thoad snatches Scott through the portal and the others quickly jump in before the portal closes. Arriving on the otherside, Barnabus informs them that they are in what the Thoad call The Zoo, with Scott and Jay both confined inside a habitat recreated to resemble Mike's backyard. As they wander round The Zoo, Mike discovers other alien specimens similar to ones he thought he had made up in his stories... They track down the habitat where Scott and Jay are being held but are then confronted by the Thoad collector appearing before them in human form (Hrogather Matthews), he explains that he intends to take the others captive and add to his collection as well before mutating into some crazy looking frog creature. He chases them around for a bit as, inside the habitat, Jay and Scott appear to be striking up a friendship! But after managing to trap the Thoad inside a cage, the gang steal the key he wears and use it to set Jay and Scott free. They race back through the Thoad portal back to Earth, but when it doesn't close behind them, Barnabus contacts "the police"! But the Thoad makes it through and tries to drag Mike back inside before the police arrive, as the other grapple to stop him, holding out long enough, an intergalactic officer appears and arrests the Thoad on the spot. In the closing scenes, Barnabus explains the Earth is safe again, with Mike's transmission deemed an accident. He offers Mike one last chance to leave Earth with him but Mike makes the decision to stay behind and try and make Earth his home.

Errr.... yeah this one was OK? I think? I don't quite know why but I just found Mike's character irrationally annoying. He didn't really come across as much of a lead character worth rooting for. And I felt a bit like Michael Shulman was struggling in the role which probably didn't help. This is certainly one of the weirdest things that Disney have ever put out though... and some of those alien characters were genuinely quite unsettling. Also felt like it lacked a moral undertale which is usually the backbone these stories are built on. If it was supposed to address feelings of not really belonging in your role in life then it really didn't. Mike doesn't really reach a resolution, he just decides to stay behind in order to prove to the rest of his peers that he does belong? I'm not quite sure I fully understood the message?

I feel like I should start with a positive though, and that's that I thought the creature design was really very good. As mentioned; The Bom is genuinely a very unsettling and disgusting creature. But to accomplish that it has to be convincing in that role. And it was. Similarly the rest of the aliens were all designed and portrayed very well, even if some of them were a bit bonkers and childishly bizarre looking. But when they weren't they actually looked very impressive. In particular The Thoad and the alien Mike believed was from one of his stories.

As mentioned though, I struggled really to empathise with Mike Pillsbury as a character. I just felt like he was portrayed as very narcissistic and arrogant. Although he does agree to help Katelyn it's mostly because he just fancied her and he talks down to his family like he considers himself superior. I couldn't say I really took to him and wanted to see him succeed... I also felt like Michael Shulman struggled in his portrayal of the character a bit. I felt like it wasn't really a good fit for him and he struggled a bit with being the leading actor in the picture having to be, to a degree, multi-dimensional and at times I felt like he compensated for it by overacting. He was ok, but was a bit unconvincing at times and it was showing in his performances.

Similarly I felt like the movie did meander around a bit, and although it was entertaining enough and kept me engaged it was a good 20 - 30 minutes in before any aliens appeared and the whole resolution with The Thoad appearing and abducting humans didn't really kick in until the last 20 minutes. The rest of the movie sort of meandered around Mike and Katelyn and their on off friendship and although it didn't really get tedious at any point, there was a bit of a lack of stuff happening until well into the second half. That being said though, I still felt interested in what was going on and following along, it just wasn't particularly exciting until after the halfway point!

In terms of cinematography though, the movie was shot perfectly fine and there was a good use of interesting framing and angles to portray certain scenes. And everything was professionally produced. It didn't feel like a TV movie this time around and felt more like an actual movie production. The only shortfall in terms of production was the music which, when it was chimed in, sounded very stock and very budget. But otherwise production-wise it could have been passed off as an actual movie production and not a direct-to-TV showing.

I think where my biggest problem is with this one is that I'm not really sure who it's target audience is supposed to be... I mean, obviously not me as I'm far too old... but even so I can't really see who you're angling this towards. The aliens are too disgusting and unsettling for this to be suitable for very young children. I wouldn't say it's particularly entertaining and captivating enough to hold the attention of slightly older younger children. And it's going to do nothing but alienate and disappoint older children who are going to shun it for more interesting and grown up movies. I know I'm kind of looking at it retrospectively with the whole of Disney+'s content at your disposal but I feel like even at the time in 1999 if this came on, I can't imagine a good portion of the child audience are going to want it left on. Unless maybe out of morbid curiosity for how weird it could potentially get. But I struggled really to identify what kind of audience it was looking to capture? I don't think it really leans enough in any one direction to fully commit to one.

Yeah bit of an odd one this. It was ok but kind of experimental and I felt like it didn't necessarily succeed. I believe it went unaired after it's initial airing for quite some time and I can understand why. It's not the kind of movie that, beyond it's oddball aliens, really has anything else going for it that is going to win you over. And even the aliens get a bit tiring after maybe 2 or 3 watches literally just out of curiosity. It lacked a substance, and a depth and a demonstration of meaningful relationships that some of the other DCOM's I've watched captured. And to be honest most of the others were largely better films. OK but mostly unremarkable aside for the weirdo aliens. Middling 2 out of 5.