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Browsing through NetFlix’s online streaming collection is not unlike those late Friday nights spent browsing through the movie maze in your local video store. The search for that perfect movie is often tricky. Sometimes you have to deal with a fuming partner and/or a melting tub of ice-cream in the car. The pressure is compounded by a listless, unhelpful store clerk in some cases. This column aims to be that clerk for NetFlix Instant Watch – maybe just a little less listless and little more helpful. This is what I waded through recently – at NetFlix.

Went Looking For…

Believe it or not, I sometimes do have a predetermined playlist while browsing for movie titles. Generally, there is a week between my adding them to the playlist and actually watching them. The movies under “Went Looking For…” are typically the movies that I had slotted as “Ended up with…” the previous week.

Imagine That

Eddie Murphy has played it very safe as an actor in recent years, churning out family movie after family movie with the odd musical thrown in. Imagine That follows that trend. He reuses the template that was successful in Daddy Day Care here. The template being that of a father having two issues to deal with at the same time - one being employment related and the other being an offspring (Son in Daddy Day Care, Daughter in Imagine That) with whom he is losing connection. As in Daddy Day Care, he makes use of the offspring situation to solve a work or income related issue.





In Imagine That, the solution is a little outlandish and fantastical in nature. I didn’t quite get it but there appears to be a magical blanket (later hinted at being a native Indian talisman of sort but not confirmed) that can help portfolio speculation for investors. This blanket is "interpreted" by Murphy’s daughter. Of course, he capitalizes on this and uses her as much as possible. Friends and ex-wife try to make him reprioritize daughter over work. He does so only after hurting her feelings and at a time when a big job promotion is on the anvil. This creates the requisite drama and some spoken words from Martin Sheen, nonetheless.

Thomas Haden Church, as the competing employee, provides some dry humor as his approach to investment banking channels his questionable native Indian roots. Eddie Murphy does well in the parts that require some physical comedy. He can pretty much sleepwalk (and yet be animated) in these situations. He does reasonably well in the serious scenes as well. Yara Shahidi is a major reason for the fantasy scenes to work. The screenplay requires the actors to narrate and react to imaginary creatures and no CGI is involved. Murphy and Shahidi execute this quite nicely.

Although this was a box office flop, collecting a little over $16 million during its entire run, it is good enough as Sunday afternoon fare for the family.

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