Don’t let the pit-stop rush, the beckoning oval, or vroom of NASCAR competition fool you. “Herbie: Fully Loaded” proves that a movie about a souped-up Volkswagen Beetle with the engine of a rebel and a will of its own can still be a pedestrian outing.
An update of the 1969 Disney family flick “The Love Bug” (and its many incarnations), “Herbie: Fully Loaded” uses a fanciful opening credit sequence to provide the back story of No. 53 for a new generation of moviegoers.
Clips from the earlier films show Herbie’s underdog triumphs, his love story and the waning of a bug’s life on the race circuit. Buoyed by a soundtrack that captures a retro, endless-summer vibe, this montage turns out to be the best filmmaking in “Herbie.”
It’s not that “Fully Loaded” doesn’t have heartfelt ambitions. Directed by relative newcomer Angela Robinson, it does. Only that once the filmmakers decided on the contemporary moral of a daughter becoming her family’s last, best hope, they deliver the tale with devices you can recognize a mile from the checkered flag.
Lindsay Lohan stars as Maggie Peyton, overlooked heir in a stock-car racing dynasty headed for its last days behind the wheel. Although Maggie’s dad Ray Sr. (Michael Keaton) insists, her brother Ray Jr. (Breckin Meyer) doesn’t have the need for speed necessary to keep the legendary family going. With one exception, sponsors are pulling their support. No small matter, because is any sport as tattooed with brand names as NASCAR?
As the movie opens, Maggie is graduating from college. At summer’s end she’ll head to the a reputable gig at ESPN in New York City.
The one-time street racer remains a bit of a rebel. She makes her entrance riding a skateboard and wearing a miniskirt beneath her graduation gown.
In a world in which stars routinely do minor stunts, it’s more than cheesy that Lohan seems to have a skate double doing what are basic maneuvers. So much for the girl power. The star does, however, wear her own miniskirt.
When Maggie’s closest friend drives up in a new SUV – a graduation present – we learn that the Peyton’s family fortunes are quite different.
Ray Sr. takes the grad to a salvage yard for her present. There Maggie finds Herbie, thanks to some desperate interventions of the battered, humbled car.
An old friend, Kevin (Justin Long) helps Maggie retool the junker, which already has revealed its personality to Maggie by taking her for some unsettling spins. Maggie, the real speed demon of the family, takes a while to accept her fate. But in due time, she’s lying to her Dad and racing again.
A daughter who bonds with a misfit, a widower dad who’s overly protective of his daughter, a climax that leads inevitably to the daughter teaching the father what’s possible: “Fully Loaded” is a lot like the more entertaining family film “Racing Stripes,” which opened earlier this year. But then, a talking zebra trumps a winking car any day of the week, no matter how cute the vehicle.
Matt Dillon, who can be seen revving up his career as a biased cop in “Crash,” looks to be enjoying his role as Maggie’s nemesis, Trip Murphy. A smug NASCAR racer, he strides around chomping gum, grinning and uttering sentences like “Hope you don’t mind that I crashed your party.” Later he tells Maggie, “You can take the car out of the junkyard but you can’t take the junkyard out of the car.”
It’s understandable if that kind of rote dialog makes you wince for the G-rated set. They deserve better.
Yet with “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” appearing on Broadway and Samantha and Darren ready for a reprise when “Bewitched” lands in multiplexes Friday, it’s easy to see which generation’s pop-cultural memories are being reheated and served.
Think of it as our own pop-culture comfort food the makers are hoping we’ll dish up to our kids.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-820-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
** | “Herbie: Fully Loaded”
G |1 hour, 35 minutes | FAMILY COMEDY| Directed by Angela Robinson; written by Thomas Lennon & Robert Ben Garant and Alfred Gough & Miles Millar; photography by Greg Gardiner; starring Lindsay Lohan, Michael Keaton, Matt Dillon, Breckin Meyer, Justin Long, Cheryl Hines |Opens today at area theaters.
