Must See Movie...

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

This movie is very out of character with the previous movies.I found all of the characters unlikable and annoying. They have no depth and they have few positive traits. For example, Herbie protects a thief from police, and breaks things, causing his new owners to scam an old lady to pay for the damage.This is the kind of behaviour I'd expect from Alonzo Hawk. What's going on here???And I haven't even talked about the bad guys.You know a movie sucks when you are rooting for the bad guys.

*MINOR SPOILER ALERT* This might not be up to the usual "Herbie" standard, but 4.8 is just ridiculous when you compare it to all the other kinds of movies rated on the IMDb. It's still about infinitely better than the usual no-budget, no-production-value, no-story, no-dialog, no-nothing movie that gets that low a rating here. A more fair rating would be about 6 or so. The cast is largely name-brand and Harvey Korman even has moments that remind you of Joe Flynn in the earlier Disney/Buena Vista live-action movies which preceded this one.I especially appreciated the location shooting, not only in Mexico but in Columbia and most especially Panama, where we get to see Herbie in the Pedro Miguel locks of the Panama Canal, cruising past Panama Viejo, and whizzing down the Fort Amador causeway with Panama City in the background, and over the Thatcher Ferry Bridge (known to everybody but Zonians rather grandiloquently as "The Bridge of the Americas") with the old Rodman Naval Station off in the distance. It was fun.

You're not supposed to dislike Herbie films. They're from a more innocent era, a time when cars having a soul didn't seem such a far-fetched idea because of the amount of acid you were dropping. Hating Herbie films is like hating a six-year-old for not being able to do algebra. But I had my fears that Herbie films would run out of gas in subsequent films but this one, this wretchedly boring addition to the series, is running on fumes. Devoid of any of the charm, humour and speed of any of the previous three films, it's a tragic way to close a series that had, at least, been fun up till now.Herbie's new owner this time is square-jawed American Pete (Stephen W Burns) and his mechanic buddy DJ (Charles Martin Smith) who inherit the car in Mexico. After befriending streetwise pickpocket Paco (Joaquin Garay, III), they decide to head to Rio De Janeiro to participate in the Brazilian Grand Prix. Boarding a cruise-liner to Rio, they meet eccentric Aunt Louise (Cloris Leachman) who intends to match up Pete with her shy and bookish (but incredibly good-looking) niece Melissa (Elyssa Davalos) while keeping her eye firmly on Captain Blythe (Harvey Korman). Amid all this, Paco is being hunted by a couple of villains from Mexico (John Vernon & Alex Rocco) who are after some lost Inca treasure and pretty soon, Herbie decides to intervene in the only way he knows how...Given that the plot is hopelessly muddled (we don't even find out how they get on in Brazil by the time the film ends!), "Herbie Goes Bananas" is a prime example of what happens when a film has only a couple of decent ideas behind it but runs out of steam very quickly and struggles to fill out its running time. Very little ever seems to happen and when it does, it's so mind-numbingly dull that it never recovers your full attention. Herbie himself lacks the personality of previous movies, being little more than a car that does tricks such as the scarcely-believable matador scene. Combine that with possibly the most annoying kid I think I've ever seen in a film (and I'm included Shortround from "Temple Of Doom") and it's no wonder you're not interested. Throughout most of the film, Herbie's called Ocho and one of the characters is so stupid, he can't work out why. For a film principally about a car with a mind of its own, it's ironic that there is no drive in the movie at all - nothing feels exciting, dynamic or amusing which is something the three earlier films managed at some point. Even the actors looks bored although Korman hams it up somewhat as the caricature naval officer.In truth, there was no reason to make this movie other than for Disney to flog a dead horse even more and wring the last few dollars out of a dying franchise. Even the weakest sequel up to this point - "Herbie Rides Again" - had one or two moments that were worth watching but this has none. But what could they have done that hadn't been done before? The only thing that's different in this movie is the location, offering the film-makers a whole bunch of dodgy accents and racial stereotypes to plunder in the search for some family-friendly laughs. Alas, they have come back empty-handed. This is the film that ushered Herbie into the pits for the last time (although Disney still put out a couple of half-hearted sequels later and even a TV show) and frankly, this film is very much like its star - out of date, rusty all over and in serious need of scrapping.

This was the last Herbie movie to my knowledge. If it wasn't the last, it was defintely the worst. What else do you call a movie when a Mexican child calls Herbie "ocho" ( he adds up Herbie famous number "53" and gets eight). Then this Mexican child does a horrible paint job and starts using Herbie to run a taxi service. In my humble opinion the only reason to watch this film is to see what sort cellouiod trash Disney was putting out before Michael Eisner took over.