Imagine That

It was a nice feel good movie to watch with family. My kids enjoyed watching it. It didn't get boring anywhere and didn't feel like it was needing dragged. Most of all, I liked the daughter's acting.

Having seen the most terrible films in the career of Eddie Murphy, such as Pluto Nash, Norbit and Meet Dave, I was expecting the worst for this film, but I still gave it a chance, from director Karey Kirkpatrick (Over the Hedge). Basically Evan Danielson (double Razzie winning Eddie Murphy) is a successful stockbroker and corporate businessman, but he is a workaholic, trying to compete against rival Johnny Whitefeather (Thomas Haden Church) with his Native American gobbledygook. With his mind set on business he is not spending enough time with his daughter Olivia (Yara Shahidi), especially as she spends her time with imaginary friends Princesses Kupida and Mopida that she can summon with her "goo- gaa" comfort blanket, but then he finds that they may become useful. Olivia talking to these invisible friends communicates their knowledge of business decisions, and Evan is willing to play with her and imagine himself in this magical world, of forests, caves, dragons and fairies, as long as he hears their thoughts that are creating better success for him. Evan may be close, still competing against Whitefeather, to earning a promotion and an important high profile client, imagining and playing with his daughter he discovers his inner child, and of course he and Olivia are becoming much closer than they did before, but he becomes obsessed with achieving his business success. It comes to the point when he is desperate to use the goo-gaa and summon the fairies that he is shunned away by Olivia's mother and step-father, and of course by Olivia herself, knowing that he is only focused on his business and not playing with her. In the end, when Olivia has a solo singing part in a school performance, Evan proves his love for his daughter by leaving the important meeting with big shot Dante D'Enzo (Martin Sheen), and dressing as a medieval king to watch her daughter perform, and showing his conviction to family he is promoted, and the imaginary fairies fly away with their work done. Also starring Nicole Ari Parker as Trish, Ronny Cox as Tom Stevens, DeRay Davis as John Strother, Vanessa Williams as Lori Strother, Stephen Rannazzisi as Noah Kulick, Stephen Root as Fred Franklin, Timm Sharp as Tod and Lauren Weedman as Rose. Murphy was fun as the man willing to look and act ridiculous to be successful, but he is a good father at heart as well, Church is weird (in a good way) as the guy with phoney spiritualism, and Shahidi is cute as the little girl with the big imagination. This wasn't actually as bad as I thought it might be, the father/daughter having fun and becoming closer was really nice to watch, there were amusing moments of playing together, such as funny voices and singing, obviously it was lame and annoying in moments, but overall it was an alright comedy fantasy. Okay!

A busy financial analyst Evan Danielson (Eddie Murphy) teeter totters with his work/life balance from his estranged wife and young daughter Olivia (Yara Shahidi before she became famous in her role as elder daughter Zoey Johnson on televisions Black-ish 2014-2019). He has a business competitor in the unorthodox style of financial guru and native American Indian Johnny Whitefeather (Thomas Haden Church) . The opposite approaches these two financial analysts provide to their prospective employer and investors is like night and day. That is until Evan's pre-teen daughter Olivia tells her daddy how best to provide financial wisdom through her talking blanket. Of course daddy Evan does not have time to listen to his daughter Olivia's claims that she hears from her blanket on the approach her dad should take with his business decisions until her prophecies continue to come true. This is a gem of a movie and grossly underrated. It has a FEEL GOOD ending and may bring tears to the eyes of any of you parental softies out there. I give it a deserving 8 out of 10.

The little girl in this movie is fun to watch. She is a kid, though she has rebelliousness and seriousness that is usually only seen in adults. Eddie Murphy movie at its best. It had the hard working parent aspect, and the child that is failing because of it. But there hope. And it makes them stronger. I liked it a lot 6 stars

Some people love to believe fiction, and be affected by it. As long as it's - for instance - a movie's story, it's good. But when it concerns something out of the movie, precisely about it, then this is really bad. Because when it comes to (Imagine That), everybody hated it without seeing it, believing the false reputation of it as ugly. So, imagine that! It's one of (Eddie Murphy)'s "family" comedies. Namely something without swearing, toilet humor, and sex jokes, which is the type that he mostly practices as a profession since his start. While this is an optimistic and lovely, "how" it is done is the question. And here, it is fairly done. The character which (Murphy) plays is simply a man who doesn't listen to his child daughter. He goes to a journey that makes him just listen. It has also a fantasy spirit, comic moments, different antagonist, hot pace and relaxing feel. I did enjoy it. (Murphy) is perfect; being astonishing while doing nothing. He has really funny scenes like: having unique dinner made by his kid, his bargaining - unsuccessful one! - with a kid, and his sneaking into the home of his kid's friend. The conflict was on between him and the character played by (Thomas Haden Church); who - by the way - played one of his most memorable roles. The sequence of the Beatles's "All we need is love" was shot so beautifully it's euphoric and sentimental. The whole movie seems like a cute effort with a message for parents as if made by their kids. However, it wasn't all top notch. The 7 year old (Yara Shahidi), who played the imaginative kid, was straightly bad. Aside from her weak presence, she played her part dully, so how about being in front of the forever energetic (Murphy). Most of the time she gives a less than expected performance, like she's reading the dialogue uninterestingly. Sure all the kids who played roles in front of (Murphy) before were more charismatic and talented. That annoyed much, since this movie had no one but (Shahidi) and (Murphy) for most of its time. Yes, the comedy wasn't about farts, private parts, and the like. But it wasn't a lot either. This script played the movie as a fun day between a father and his kid. The laughs were few, and the rest was about flimsy chuckles. It clearly needed more funny situations and dialogue. The third act suffered some obviousness and predictability. For instance, the father of the kid's friend overreacted couple of times in terms of dealing with the hurried (Murphy). The way the antagonist lost the conflict was forced and unconvincing; he was too wise to do what he did at the last weighty meeting. Master of businessmen (Marin Sheen)'s reaction towards (Murphy)'s actions at the end was easy to predict for having a happy ending anyhow. And although the song scene was good, but the matter of a climax where the dad leaves his work, and goes to his kids, preferring soul / family love on material / money is too conventional and worn-out, having been done in numerous movies lately. Anyway, (Imagine That) is a little movie; watchable, meaningful, and nice. Its important message is delivered wickedly "without listening to your kid, you won't succeed" and it's true. Believing their fiction, or any fiction, can be so well to do. Unless when it comes to this movie's reputation. It got undeservingly harsh treatment from everybody. And the lesson here is: don't blindly believe the reviewers, they can be blind themselves!

Eddie Murphey stars as a father who starts taking advice from his daughter in Imagine that. Now I know that everyone has given up on Eddie Murphey. Because both Meet Dave and Norbit were disasters. But Imagine that actually isn't a disaster. I am not going to go too much into the plot. Or into it at all. Now Eddie Murphey at a time was a great comedic talent, but now he chooses all of these bad films. But Eddie Murphey sure does make a comeback in this film. Imagine that is a funny film. Though at times seems a little too crude. Trust me people this ain't Norbit but this film is a good movie. I also felt like the film was a little bit cliché'd if you know what I mean. There is a scene in the film where Eddie Murphey leaves his meeting to see his daughter sing at her school. Clearly it's not a great movie, but I appreciated it so thumbs up.

I have always liked Eddie Murphy. Some of my favourite movies had him perform brilliantly in the Klumps films, and the Nutty Professor. This film is pleasant, but bland and flabby. It has no substance. The plot is simple enough--- Murphy is in a "death struggle" with a rival at his competitive work environment, and he is unexpectedly rescued by his young daughter's fantasy relationships with her fairy princesses and other invisible friends. There would be nothing wrong with that plot were it not that the film doesn't seem to have any backbone. No internal support. It is like the work of a friend of mine, a designer and remodeler of houses and buildings. She will sometimes construct life-sized versions of proposed building changes with large sheets of cardboard, held together with duct tape. She will place these "new" walls and elements right in the actual places they would occupy if installed. This technique gives one a very real sense of what the proposed changes will look and feel like. But the cardboard does not actually substitute for real structures. It is not designed to. This film has that same cardboardy and insubstantial feel to it. One gets the "idea" of the story, but not a real substantive story. As if the writer and director merely sketched out a rough and thin version of the finished product, but then forgot to go back replace the sketches with actual, solid, real parts. For example, Murphy has an arch enemy in this film--- a smarmy con-man type who presents himself as some kind of native American Medicine Man or shaman. He even calls himself Mr. Whitefeather, and wears clothes and jewelry with a Navajo motif. He even wears eagle feathers in one scene, and peppers his speech with commercialised versions of faux-Medicine-Man psycho-babble. He uses his "Indianness" to dazzle potential clients who are caught up in the exotica of a tribal theme. But, we find out he is really a fake, with a great-grandfather Navaho, making him a virtual non-starter in the PC world of "Let's be nice to the Natives." OK, fine--- but what does that have to do with Murphy and his daughter? Sadly, nothing at all. Yes, the con man's deception was disgraceful, but it also belonged in some other movie, not this one. The child actress playing the daughter was charming, and a very good actor. yet 90% of the time I could not account for her moods--- she is withdrawn and moody. Why? Dunno... What's the moodiness leading to next in the plot? Again, dunno... The cause-and-effect logic of Murphy and his fellow cast members' actions was also not at all clear. The scenes kind of existed, at times, as static and unrelated events. Never did I laugh (nor did the audience), and never was I puzzled, surprised, delighted, or otherwise engaged. This film needed another 6 months of rewriting and rethinking before being made. Murphy is a genius! Can't ANYONE write a decent movie for him?

Hot shot exec who is trying to be a good dad has a crisis of confidence which some how begins to be turned around thanks to his entry into his daughters imaginary world. Uneven Eddie Murphy comedy is better than many of his recent outings. There certainly something to the script which has some nice moments of Eddie getting in touch with his inner child. However there are other moments that just come off rather shrill and far from clever. I big problem with the film is the secondary cast. Thomas Hayden Church who has been turning in some excellent performances in other films is terrible here and some of the actors supporting the leads seem to locked in some bad TV sitcom. I think its worth a try but I'd wait for cable.

Eddie Murphy has been off his A-game in 'comedy' lately. The past few movies he's been in have been flops, sucky films, and/or not funny (kind of like Will Ferrel). Well, I was skeptical of 'Imagine That' and thought that I would die from watching a movie that had bad reviews. After seeing the movie, however, I actually enjoyed the movie a little. The actor that portrays Murphy's daughter is a natural and her character has cute moments. 'Imagine That' doesn't really have any 'laugh-out-loud moments'; it's funny sometimes, but not a 'bursting with laughter' kind of funny. I actually read a review that said that 'Meet Dave', which was the last Eddie Murphy film (and was also a big flop), had more laughs than 'Imagine That.' While watching this movie it started to remind me of a kids movie that Eddie Murphy was in a few years ago, called 'Daddy Day Care.' I liked 'Daddy Day Care' a lot more than 'Imagine That' (i don't know if it's because i was younger then…), but I still wouldn't say that 'Imagine That' is a horrible movie. It's an 'okay' movie; not too good, but not too bad.

Eddie Murphy's newest comedy, Imagine That does not have the painfully low amount of laughs as Meet Dave, or the extreme offensiveness of Norbit. In fact, it does have one or two laughs, and it's kind of sweet, and certainly not offensive. That said, even this Eddie Murphy vehicle can't stop my belief that by now Eddie Murphy should be flipping burgers somewhere. When I say one or two laughs, I mean I got a quiet ha-ha every 55 minutes of the movie, and it's 110 minutes. The sweetness comes from the fact that Eddie Murphy is a jerk to his daughter, and then is all of a sudden nice to her. Don't worry, that's not even actually sweet, he just does it so he can get a promotion. The only real entertainment, and not funny or sweet entertainment comes from Thomas Haden Church as Johnny Whitefeather, Evan Danielson (Eddie Murphy)'s business rival with a weird way of business. Unfortunately, he's only in a couple of scenes. The two laughs come from Bobbe J. Thompson (the kid who played the foul-mouthed Ronnie in Role Models) as a kid offered easy money, and who denies it. The second laugh is Johnny getting his son hopped up on red bull so he can use the same skill Evan uses for his business predictions. This is not a good movie by any means, but if you want to see a bad Eddie Murphy film, then this is the best bad Eddie Murphy film you can get. Unlike his previous films, instead of being horrible, it's just mediocre.