Good Burger (1997)

(Netflix Streaming, December 2015) The stupidity of Good Burger is overpowering enough to make even the smartest viewers gradually lose their higher mental functions during the course of the film.  There’s a good chance that you’ll end laughing at Good Burger with moronic glee toward the end of the film, because by that time you will be a certifiable moron.  To be fair, the first five minutes of the film set the tone, as a burger-obsessed teenager (Kel Mitchel, progressively likable) lives in a reality where his fast-food job is the most interesting thing in the world.  The rest of the story follows, as the local burger joint is threatened by a corporate chain, as secret sauces and illegal additives are involved, and as one dumb moment follows another.  Good Burger isn’t refined, but it does have an increasing amount of comic energy going for it.  The dim-witted protagonist earns our sympathy, and the absurdity of it all eventually becomes its own selling point.  While I wouldn’t want to see a film like Good Burger more than once or twice a year, I suppose that a bit of variety doesn’t hurt from time to time.