Quartile rating: 5.5/10 · 1 rating
After a car crash sends repressed cartoonist Stu into a coma, he and the mischievous Monkeybone, his hilarious alter-ego, wake up in a wacked-out waystation for lost souls. When Monkeybone takes over Stu's body and escapes to wreak havoc on the real world, Stu has to find a way to stop him before his sister pulls the plug on reality forever!
Monkeybone is a visually ambitious but narratively chaotic adaptation of the graphic novel 'Dark Town.' The production design and creature work — blending live-action with stop-motion and puppetry — give it a genuinely distinctive visual texture that stands apart from most early-2000s fantasy-comedies. However, the plot is muddled and tonally inconsistent, lurching between gross-out humor and existential whimsy without finding a satisfying balance. Brendan Fraser commits gamely but the script gives him little to work with, and the supporting cast is largely wasted. The ending fumbles the body-swap premise and resolves too hastily to feel earned. Its novelty lies more in its aesthetic ambition than any true originality of story, making it a fascinating misfire — memorable for what it attempted rather than what it achieved.