By Geno McGahee
I am beginning to get an appreciation of “bad movies” from the 1990s. I make it a point to watch one about once a month and as I was sifting through the live action stuff on Disney+, I saw the artwork for the 1996 movie “KAZAAM” with basketball star, Shaq. I knew of this movie, but became more aware of it when it was compared to that Mandela Effect Sinbad movie SHAZAAM. I remember both. I prefer the Sinbad one.
KAZAAM was produced by Shaq and he obviously wanted to launch an acting and rapping career through it. Go big or go home. I can’t fault the guy for that approach, but there are some things I can fault him for and some things I can give him credit for.
Max (Francis Capra) is a 12-year-old that is getting bullied at school and is dealing with his mother, Alice (Ally Walker), getting engaged to Travis (John Costelloe). He’s not taking it well all around but I figured that when he met the genie, he’d fix the asses of the bullies. That’s always satisfying. I remember watching THE NEVERENDING STORY and loving when that kid was riding that big furry fuck thing and chasing the bullies.
After school, the bullies aren’t done and chase Max into an abandoned building and Max stumbles upon a boom box. Somehow Kazaam (Shaq) was trapped in a boom box and carries it everywhere after his release. Because Max was the one that bumped into it, he released the genie of the lamp and now has three wishes.
The way Kazaam was released was spectacular by 1996 CGI standards as this big tornado unleashes him, which scares the bullies off. Now Max saw the whole thing and still doesn’t buy that Kazaam is magical and walks away from him when offered three wishes. It was so obvious that he had some powers and considering Max’s situation, you’d think he’d have wishes waiting for just a situation like this. Kill the bullies. Make Travis’s dick limp around his mother. Get a better haircut. There are so many wishes that he should have immediately spat out.
As Max skips school, Kazaam follows and there are some laughs and charm here. Shaq hides behind small poles or walks with a newspaper over his face, lowering it to show his face. There was some potential here for a good comedy with Kazaam’s antics.
Max goes to find his father that he hasn’t seen for 10 years and he succeeds, locating Nick (James Acheson), a music producer that specializes in illegal stuff. He’s in all sorts of trouble and isn’t the nicest guy in the world. Despite that, Max wants to move in with him and work for the family business, but he’s denied by his dad although there was an interest in something else. Nick wants Kazaam to perform at a show he’s putting on. I have no idea why, but Shaq wanted to rap really bad and this is as good an excuse as any.
Finally putting his doubt aside, Max makes a wish and it’s the most stupid fucking wish in the history of wishes. He wishes for junk food from the ground to the sky and candy and burgers hit the ground. I never considered burgers junk food. Whatever the case, Max gets his fill of candy bars and is now taking his time on his last two wishes.
At the show, Kazaam raps and the crowd goes wild. I’m not a rap fan. I don’t listen to rap, but I know a good song when I hear it. The Kazaam rap is NOT a good song, but it drives the crowd crazy and he seems to be enjoying himself. He gets into it and then holds up his boom box and releases some magic into the crowd, getting the attention of crime kingpin, Malik (Marshall Manesh). He knows a genie when he sees one and he plans to rub him the right way.
As Max learns more and more about his dad, Kazaam starts to get distracted with stardom and we get more Shaq rapping. Why didn’t anyone tell him he wasn’t any good? You’d think he’d have a friend tell him “hey man, don’t rap anymore. It blows.” But, when you can hire a bunch of extras to hoot and cheer, you can at least pretend you got the talent to be a big star in the field.
The worst part of the film happens when we get a rap duet with Max and Kazaam. I am glad I’m not a depressed person. This scene would have pushed me over the edge. I know what they were going for. They needed a scene where Kazaam and Max finally become real friends and they did it, unfortunately, through rap. What a painfully cringe scene it was.
Malik puts a plan forth to kidnap Max and his father to lure Kazaam over where he can become the new master of the genie. We get a silly finale with Kazaam turning Malik into a basketball and slam-dunking him into a vent. I thought it was pretty funny and he should give a shout out to the sport he played. Why not?
The movie ends as you’d expect. The genie gets freedom, Max accepts the new stepdad and all the bad guys are locked up, but it missed the mark in a lot of areas. Max is unlikable. It’s hard to root for a snarky asshole kid that’s a jerk off to everyone. The chemistry between Shag and Capra isn’t there. I’m not sure why Capra was chosen for the role, but he’s not totally to blame. Shaq was new to the acting game.
To the credit of this movie and specifically Shaq, it did show the potential of Shaq as a movie star. He had comedic timing and was a presence on screen. He was willing to be silly and also took time to feed his ego with the rapping, which is what slowed this movie down. If we saw more focus on this one, this film would have done much better, but even with everything considered, it’s not as bad as it could have been.
KAZAAM is worth a watch and follows the formula set by many family movies at the time where a young kid is trying to cope with a broken family only to meet a supernatural force there to help. It just does it worse than most due to Shaq trying to launch his acting career and rap career at the same time. I still recommend it and I have to give major props to Marshell Manesh for the best performance in the film. He was very entertaining in this.
