Woody Woodpecker (2017)

(On Cable TV, September 2022) Most of the time, wondering why I haven’t seen a big-budget film five years after its release can be explained very simply: the film isn’t good, made no lasting cultural impact, didn’t stand the test of time, and has found a place in the media landscape solely as filler for content-starved budget-conscious TV channels or streaming services. Woody Woodpecker (the character) has a surprisingly long history in movies—including being part of the classic hard-SF film Destination Moon back in 1950. But chances are that we’ll remember the 1950 snippet longer than the full-length 2017 film, because it’s really not good at all. Financed by the home-entertainment wing of Universal for theatrical release in Latin America (the character is apparently an icon in Brazil) and straight-to-streaming in North America, this Woody Woodpecker is an unwieldy mix between live-action actors and a computer-animated Woody, except that the script was apparently written for slow grade-schoolers. Blend that undiscriminating target audience with a low-end production budget and a mercenary approach from writer/director Alex Zamm and you get what he was paid to deliver: a dumb movie with substandard visuals, ham-fisted messages, cartoonish characters (even when they’re played by real actors) and an overall annoying impression. It’s not a lot of fun to watch and, even at 91 minutes, increasingly irritating the longer it goes on. No, if you haven’t seen Woody Woodpecker, it’s not of any fault of your own. You can even go back to not knowing the film ever existed. Although, alas, I see there will be a sequel.