For this review I'd like to take you back to one of my all time favorite movies growing up. There were many classic comedies during my adolescent and teen years during the mid 90's that I still quote to this day, but Heavyweights was near the top of the list.
Heavyweights is a comedy from the mid 90's that centers around a Fat Cap that is overtaken by a Fitness Guru who plans to turn a formerly fun summer camp into a fitness boot camp. The film stars a young Ben Stiller and several other big name child actors that would go on to star in many Disney films around that time.
Plot:
The film starts out with a young boy (Gerry) ending his school year and going home to find out his family has enrolled him in a summer camp. This is not exactly a normal summer camp as it is only for overweight children. This is not how Gerry planned on spending his summer vacation. However, upon viewing the informational video for the camp and meeting some of the fellow campers, it appears that Fat Camp might not be so bad after all.
As Gerry arrives to the camp he sees everything he has been hearing about. From the blob, to the go-carts, to the swimming hole, things look like they are going to be a lot of fun at Fat Camp. That all changes when they have their meeting the first night of camp.
The former owners of the camp announce that they have fallen upon hard times financially and are forced to sell the camp to an up and coming fitness guru. The campers are expectedly bummed out by the news. Their sadness quickly turns into downright fear when they meet their new camp owner, Tony Perkis. Perkis is nothing like the previous laid back camp owners and plans to shoot a weight loss infomercial from the camp starring the campers themselves. What looked like a fun summer camp just turned into fitness boot-camp hell...
As the days go by things get progressively worse as the kids resist Tony's attempts at helping them lose weight. What first starts out as a gentle nudging to help them get their weight under control quickly turns into tyranny as Tony gets more and more upset and more and more strict when he doesn't get the weight loss results he is expecting from his campers.
Perkis seriously ratchets up their workouts and diets to the point where it is getting dangerous for the boys. He withholds meals and doubles workout times. Often criticizing them and shaming them in front of their peers. What was supposed to be encouraging healthy fitness has quickly turned into physical and mental abuse. As you can imagine a mutiny soon occurs...
The kids decide that enough is enough and they hatch a plan of how they can get rid of Perkis and take their camp back. I won't go into any more of the story in case you haven't seen the film yet. If you want to know how it ends, you will have to check out the film yourself. :)
Reception:
The film had mostly negative reviews when it came out. It was not a particular high budget film and the entire shooting for the film was done in less than 2 months. Critics of the film cited that the film had too many plot holes and that the film was basically two films in one, that didn't really fit together.
Financially the film didn't do that well grossing around $17 million world wide since it's release in 1995.
However, the film has since garnered something of a cult following by 90's generation kids who grew up watching the film. It was also one of Ben Stiller's first films, where he starred alongside his dad, which has also boosted the film's following.
Heavyweights is definitely a film that has gotten better with time. It now stands as a comedy family classic in the hearts and minds of many of the 90's generation.
My Review:
I personally love this film. It is one of my all time favorites that I find myself quoting quite often. Lars and Perkis offer the most memorable lines from:
"Please put your fat finger down! You have broken my camera"
"Buddie! Buddie! I have them on the Buddie system.."
"I'm feeling skinny already Tony"
to
"Today we are going to talk about value, you have none"
"There are many myths about the abdominal muscles, today I'd like to put this one to rest"
There are plenty more that my brother and I often quote back and forth when something reminds us of a scene. Now my stepson and I find ourselves quoting it too as I had him watch it for the first time this past weekend. He thought the movie was the greatest thing ever. The next day we went over to his cousin's house and the first thing he did was get his cousins to watch it on Netflix with him.
The film has a great cast that I didn't really remember or appreciate the first couple times I saw it way back then. However, now when I see it, I can't help but notice how many of these kids went on to star in other family friendly movies around the same time period, specifically the Mighty Ducks movies.
I wouldn't change a single thing about this movie other than taking out a few of the curse words out to make it even more family friendly. It looked like when they first made the film it got a PG 13 rating and they went back and edited some things out to get that PG rating, if they could have taken a few more out it would have really been perfect for what it was intended to be, an over the top comedy classic for the entire family.
If you haven't seen this film I strongly recommend it. It is available on Netflix currently and probably some other streaming locations as well. Sit down with a bowl of popcorn and get the whole family together and enjoy laughing and shaking your head at the over the top humor. Stiller makes the perfect villain and drops some great lines much the same way he does in some of his later comedy classics.
Have you seen the film? What are some of your favorite lines from the movie?
Let me know in the comments section below.
Live well my friends!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavyweights
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110006/
Image Sources:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110006/
http://www.chud.com/137374/movie-of-the-day-heavyweights-1995/
http://www.sky.com/tv/movie/heavyweights-1995/gallery/gallery-heavyweights
Follow: @jrcornel
is it worth watching??
Absolutely! One of my all time favorites!
I love this movie! I need to dig it out again!
It's a classic!
OMG, that kid looks like Kenan Thompson from Saturday Night Live, and yeah it is him :) Checked the IMDB link.
Yep! And Kenan and Kel! ;)
I was working at a children's home when this movie came out. The residents wanted to watch it all the time! Thanks for bringing the memory back.
You got it. It brings back a lot of memories of my childhood as well. :)
This post has been ranked within the top 50 most undervalued posts in the second half of Jan 14. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $5.62 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jan 14 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
why are you rating a 20 year old movie? just wondering
Because it is one of my all time favorite films. Also it's a film that didnt garner much attention at the time it was released...