LITTLE MAN - Blu-ray review

Really dumb, but kind of funny.

There you have it in a Wayans brothers' nutshell. "Little Man" is the type of outing that the brothers needed after "White Chicks," a quintessentially bad film which was so dumb that "funny" was in a totally different area code.

The dress-up gimmick this time isn't a couple of black guys who give themselves a white make-over in order to impersonate two socialites as shallow as the Hilton sisters that inspired them. Instead, it's a tough dwarf who ends up having to pose as a baby after a diamond heist goes slightly awry. Can't anyone tell the difference between a baby and a middle-aged dwarf, you may be wondering? Well, parental love is apparently blind. Though this guy has a face that only a mother can love, when he ends up on the doorstep of a married couple who've been thinking about having a child and see this as an opportunity for a trial run, they're not exactly looking for flaws. Not that they have to look all that far.

"He's scary," one of their friends' kids says when they're all introduced to the new addition. More tactfully, an adult responds, "He's adorable . . . in a National Geographic sort of way." And this film trades off the difference between his new "parents'" inability to see he's really a hairy, horny thug while everyone else, including Pops (John Witherspoon), who lives with his daughter and her husband, knows there's something not quite right about this little guy (Marlon Wayans, whose face is superimposed on actor Linden Porco's body).

The screen hasn't seen such a gag-fest based on a dwarf since Mini-me. But you know the Wayans. Some of the jokes are so sophomoric that you wonder if they got them out of notebooks they kept while doodling their way through high school. Others are surprisingly laugh-out loud funny. I'll warn you right now that the prime audience for a film like this is probably young males under the age of 18. The farting and scatological humor are here, as are probably more hits to the crotch than you've seen since "Dodgeball." But there are also very clever moments that go beyond the standard lowbrow humor . . . or at least elevate it a bit with twists or allusions. In one such moment, Darryl (Shawn Wayans) makes love to his wife, Vanessa (Kerry Washington) while baby Calvin looks on leeringly from his crib. The next morning, Vanessa is perfectly aglow, saying how she can't remember the last time they did it TWO times. A quizzical look from Darryl, and then we see baby Calvin smiling in bed next to Vanessa--though Marlon's face is fun to watch throughout the film.

Of course, the first time they go to change Calvin's diaper there's the expected WHOA! from everyone who's looking, but an even funnier moment comes later when Vanessa tries to blow raspberries on little Calvin's body and Calvin keeps trying to force her head down toward his pleasure zone. Though kids would enjoy much of this film, it's rated PG-13 for "crude and sexual humor throughout, language and brief drug references."

For the most part, the CGI work looks so good that you never really think about it as being a special effects movie. Then again, we don't really scrutinize it all that much because the concept is so goofy and the characters really seem to have so much fun with it. Percy (Tracy Morgan), a petty crook who picked up his half-pint-sized friend when he got out of prison, keeps trying to help him get the diamond back after they had to ditch it in Vanessa's purse in a convenience store. The Wayans use him to get in a few good licks on bad hip-hop wannabes, while Damien Wayans has fun playing Officer Wilson. As with "White Chicks," Keenen Ivory Wayans directs a screenplay he co-wrote with brothers Shawn and Marlon. The Wayans say they want their audience to "take your brain out your head, sit down, and have a ball." What can I say? I did, and I laughed, even watching the same funny moments as they were replayed on some of the bonus features. Good stuff? Umm, I'm embarrassed to say, yeah, I thought it was funny.

Video: The 1080p Hi Def picture (1.85:1 aspect ratio) looks great, with good detail, good color saturation, and good black levels.

Audio: Audio options are the "pure" sound that English PCM 5.1 (uncompressed) promises, though it's not as robust as other Blu-rays I've reviewed. Rather than being the result of some deficiency I suspect it's just that much of the action takes place in the center and much of the sound is all dialogue. That means much of the audio emanates from the front center speaker, with the surround speakers channeling relatively little of the sound.

Extras: This is the "Loaded with Extra Crap Edition," but there's less "crap" here than there is on the DVD release. Though there's the same deleted/extended scenes, making-of featurette, visual effects featurette, a short feature on Porco, and a tongue-in-cheek feature on "method" acting, missing is the commentary by the Wayans brothers.

The features are pretty much what you'd expect, except that one of them is exceptionally bad and another is exceptionally good. The worst is a worthless feature on Marlon supposedly being reduced to the point where we can't see him sitting on a chair, and all the other actors are talking about how much of a challenge it is. It's not funny, and who cares? But the really great extra focuses on the nine-year-old actor with a growth condition who played Marlon's body. It turns out they had to film everything twice-once with the young actor, and again with Marlon trying to duplicate the kids' movements exactly. We see Marlon coaching the kid on what he'd do in a particular scene, and darned if this rookie actor doesn't deliver. Watching him act and seeing his own face on his body as he delivers ALL his lines with Marlon's comic timing, tone, and flair, it's apparent that there's real talent here. We'll be seeing more of Linden Porco, even if screenwriters have to lower a few high-concept properties to fit the two-and-a-half foot tall youngster. Then again, Linden tells an interviewer, "I really want to direct," so look out, Keenen.

Bottom Line: For the most part, "Little Man" is what you'd expect: low comedy, but comedy nonetheless. It only bogs down during an extended football scene that seems like a pointless digression. The rest of it moves surely toward a conclusion that feels strangely right. Is it satisfying? Heck no. Is it a classic? Double heck no. Is it funny and entertaining? Yep. Though you might not want to admit it in the morning.