Retro Film Review: Joe's Apartment (1996)

"Less is more" is the lesson Hollywood often fails to learn. Results of such failures could be seen in films like Joe's Apartment, 1996 comedy written and directed by John Payson and based on his own 1992 short film, aired on MTV.

The plot of the film deals with Joe (played by Jerry O'Connell), young man from Iowa who decides to start new life in New York. However, the jobs in Big Apple are scarce and decent housing seems even scarcer. The best Joe could find is an apartment in East Village where the rent is mere 100 US$ a month. The problem with the apartment is in Joe having to share it with some 50,000 roaches who love dirty jokes and Broadway musicals. Roof over head is after all roof over head and Joe learns to live with the roaches. The only problem arises when Joe falls in love with Lilly (played by Megan Ward), beautiful city administration employee who dreams of building a garden in Joe's neighbourhood. While Joe ponders how to win Lily's heart, her father, Senator Dougherty (played by Robert Vaughn) wants to pull Joe's apartment building down and build federal penitentiary on the premises.

The idea of thousands of talking cockroaches living harmoniously with a single guy was fresh in 1992 and provided material for a film which was inventive, funny and, last but not least, short. In feature film the novelty of talking cockroaches quickly wears off and all the stop motion animation and CGI can't hide the fact that many scenes resemble each other. The human protagonists are even less interesting than the cockroaches, with Jerry O'Connell giving the new definition of the word "bland". Not even the presence of such experienced veterans like Robert Vaughn can save this film from sinking beneath mediocrity and 79 minutes of Joe's Apartment look too long.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on May 15th 2003)

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