Imagine a film with a young Elijah Wood divorcing his parents, forcing him to embark on a journey to find new guardians, all with Bruce Willis as his guardian angel.
Now appreciate the fact that you don’t have to imagine that, because someone actually made it.
Although North may not be a film often spoken about today, its easy to argue that it should be. Outside of Wood and Willis, Dan Ackroyd and Kathy Bates also have minor roles in this fever dream of a film, along with a very young Scarlett Johansson.
Our introduction to North shows us him being a great kid, who is under appreciated by his parents. Following a chat with Bruce Willis as the Easter Bunny, he comes up with the novel idea of divorcing his parents, which he successfully manages.
According to the judge though, he must be in the arms of either his original parents, or his new parents, with in exactly six months, or be sent to an orphanage.
The bulk of the movie is North visiting various families, all of which are a total culture shock, and sometimes just slightly insane.
Being from 1994, many parts of the movie are shocking for a modern audience, such as his Hawaii’n family wanting to use his underage butt crack on a huge billboard, or a southern ranch family who fattened their previous son up, only for him to die by trampling.
It’s insane, a little disjointed at times, but hugely entertaining and unintentionally hilarious.
Along his way, Bruce Willis pops up as a variety of characters from cowboys to FedEx workers, displaying the range of his acting ability with the two accents he decides between for each role.
As if all that isn’t enough, there’s also the sub plot of North’s best friend plotting against him reuniting with his original parents, in order to liberate children everywhere.
He somehow gains a huge amount of power, landing himself an office that looks like something Biff Tannen would be jealous of, filling with arcade machines.
He’s basically living the dream, until his plan is foiled and North, having tried out numerous families and realised his original parents are the best after all, manages to reunite with his parents back in the mall where the whole thing began.
There’s a reason more than one review called this film one of the worst ever created though, and thats because the ending lets down the entire movie.
The whole thing was all a dream, although he does catch a ride home from Bruce Willis, and finds a souvenir from his travels in his pocket.
A better film would have shown the real world consequences of a whole generation of children learning they have power over their parents, but North simply presents you a wildly entertaining movie, with a disappointing end.
It’s not the worst ending to have ever happened, but it is a let down after how good the rest of the movie was. North is definitely a movie that will not get a second watch.