section should be replaced with Paulie having road adventures, saving the innocent, and learning life lessons. It runs into trouble once it gets to L.A.
#PARROT MOVIE 1998 MOVIE#
If the movie stayed at that level, this would be a great family film. It's an emotionally powerful start to the journey. This follows a long line of Hollywood animals traveling long distances to find their owners. In L.A., he encounters taco truck owner Ignacio (Cheech Marin), gets birdnapped by Benny (Jay Mohr), and sent to scientist Dr. Ivy (Gena Rowlands) tries to return him to Marie who moved to L.A. Paulie starts recounting his life with a little girl named Marie Alweather (Hallie Eisenberg). New janitor Misha Vilyenkov (Tony Shalhoub) finds intelligent talking parrot Paulie (Jay Mohr) locked in the basement. Overall, not outstanding by all means but hits a lot more than it misses. Whenever the two are together, the film does have a lot of heart. The other is Paulie himself, he is very cocky but he is also very cute and superbly voiced by Jay Mohr. She is played with precious innocence by Hallie Kate Eisenberg. One is young Marie, the speech-impaired but simply adorable little girl who takes care of Paulie. And I was fine with the acting, Tony Shalhoub does what he can in the underwritten role as the Russian janitor, while Cheech Marin and Gena Rowlands are cute in their roles and Bruce Davison is fine too as Dr Reingold. I loved the soundtrack too, and the direction is good. Where else would you see a parrot cheering on the winged attackers while watching Hitchcock's The Birds, or even Bruce Davison wanting to steal the secret of Paulie's voice, Gena Rowlands trying to teach the cocky bird some manners and Cheech Marin introducing him to his singing circus? The film is lovely to look at, with beautiful cinematography and scenery, and the animiatronics are absolutely superb. The story does have a number of lovely moments, such as the chemistry between Paulie and young Marie, and the script is touching with some moments of sly wit. Even if the film gets a little slow in places and there are one or two underwritten characters, Paulie is still a sweet and very charming film.