Hundreds of Beavers brings back a forgotten time in cinema and revitalises it with side-splitting hilarity.
Okay, in full honesty, within the first 60 seconds of viewing, I thought Hundreds of Beavers was not the movie for me…but then I discovered something magical!
After carefully removing the movie snob stick from my butt, the next hour and 47 min was exactly the movie I not only needed but laughed out loud and had a great time watching! This film reminded me of the old Bugs Bunny vs Wile E. Coyote cartoons and the old cartoons of Dudley Do-Right and his arch nemesis Snidely Whiplash and even the movie The Apple Dumpling Gang came to mind.
Jean Kayak begins as an applejack salesman who enjoys his own product a little too much. Being a bumbling, drunken idiot, he ends up getting soused and destroys the entire applejack factory. Not only is he stranded out in this brutal wintery landscape, but he’s freezing and hungry enough to start seeing all the forest creatures (humans in “mascot” costumes) as drumsticks or slices of pizza. He finds his way to the cabin of the fur trader, sees his lascivious daughter and knows what he must do to become the greatest fur trapper the world has ever seen. The promise is for Kayak to bring back hundreds of beavers before he can wed the trader’s daughter.
The story that ensues is mostly silent, all in black & white and one of the absolute funniest slapstick films I have seen. Kayak follows another trapper who tries to teach him how to set up and keep up with each of the beaver traps…it’s just that our nimble-brained “hero” can’t make sense of it. So he erases it to create his map—this part reminds me of video games I played as a kid, especially Frogger. His traps keep improving as he keeps trying and making mistakes. He goes about his scheming all the while the Beavers are building Armageddon in the form of a logging factory. Kayak also befriends a native along the way and I actually had to pause here as he is introduced to his horse. The horse…I couldn’t stop laughing.
I’ve seen silly films that are just dumb and silly films that are dumb but have a spark— Hundreds of Beavers is that kind of silly film with legit brilliant comedy that just wins you over. I’ll be watching this again.
I’m giving it a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 💫
Hundreds of Beavers
Directed by Mike Cheslik
Run time: 1 hour 48 min
Cast: Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, Olivia Graves, Wes Tank, Doug Mancheski Luis Rico
Hundreds of Beavers will be released in UK & Irish cinemas on July 9
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