Review of Thumb Wars

Introduction

Thumb Wars: The Phantom Cuticle is one filmette in a line of Thumb film parodies. Others include The God Thumb, The Blair Thumb and Bat Thumb. Written and directed by Steve Oedekerk who`s responsible for writing: Kung Pow!: Enter the Fist, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and The Nutty Professor amongst many films, Steve has turned his attentions to producing low budget parodies of high profile blockbusters. What`s unique about these `thumb` films is that they star, thumbs. That is, a thumb, dressed with eyes, mouth, hair and costume delivering dialogue. Freaky and disturbing?

Having been sold out by her droids, Prissypeo and Beboobeep, Princess Bunhead is captured by The Black Helmet Man and interrogated on the whereabouts of the Thumbellion Resistance. Her droids are intercepted by Oobedoob Benubi with the whiney Loke Groundrunner in tow and they find the message from the Princess contained within the droid Beboobeep. They`re now on a quest to rescue the Princess and must fight against the dark side of the nail by destroying the big dangerous weapon thing. Helping them on their way is Hand Duet and his sidekick Crunchie.

"If the Thumbellion can destroy the big dangerous weapon thing they will live and the good side of the Thumb will reign. If they don`t there can be no sequels. And no sequels means no merchandising, no fan clubs, no freaky guys at conventions that have way too much free time and no clear desire to date girls. Victory is imperative!"

Quite.

Video

This was shot on video with a 1.33:1 fullframe so the DVD preserves this and presents us with a nice clean video transfer. Colours and contrast are fine and I couldn`t spot any problems visually. Some of the CGI is quite good, some shots are a bit cheesy, but I think this just lends the film what it needs.

Audio

English, French, German and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks are featured here. For a small scale film, the sound here is very good. It`s clear and without any other noticeable technical problems at all. The surrounds are hardly used which is a shame for a sci-fi movie, but you get over it when you`re laughing with the film.

Features

For a low budget filmette this has some good features:

Trailers for Thumb films: Thumb Wars, Frankenthumb, Bat Thumb, Thumbtanic, The God Thumb and The Blair Thumb.

Gabba the Butt interview - An interview lasting a few minutes with the main `thing` talking about its role in the film.

Storyboard Gallery - A few minutes of storyboard artwork.

Thumbographies - This covers bios for the thumb actors.

Subtitle Selection - English and Dutch.

Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Steve Oederkerk and producer Paul Marshall - Since the film is only 30 minutes long, there`s no excuse not to listen to the fun commentary. It`s a shame the film is as short as it is!

Conclusion

DISCLAIMER: All puns - accidental or not - are fully intended.

I think it`s fitting that with the impending release of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, that we take a look at the lighter (or darker) and perhaps sillier side of Star Wars. I`m not "Star Wars" as a certain geekhead Chewie lover I know would call me, and I don`t care, I`m really not interested in The Phantom Menace or AOTC, these bore me. Now, Thumb Wars on the other hand is something that I really enjoyed.

Not only is this DVD so easy to watch with a mere runtime of just half-an-hour, but the one-liners, sexual innuendo and the sheer silliness of it all just cracks me up. I mean, where else would you get thumbs with names like, `Loke Groundrunner`, `Princess Bunhead`, `Prissypeo`, `Beboobeep`, `Oobedoob "Scooby Dooby" Benubi`, `Hand Duet`, `Black Helmet Man` and `Gabba the Butt`? And wait till you hear the jokes...

The script follows the salient points from the Star Wars franchise and manages to poke a very big stick at the ridiculousness of it all, moreso than other Star Wars send ups. From finding out about Luke`s parentage, to his training as a Thumb Master and fighting the dark side you can see there`s a fair amount of coverage from the original film.

The voice casting is pretty much Steve and co covering as many of the voices as possible and is done well. Add some nice and simple, if a little cheesy, special effects, good costumes and good sets and it all adds up to a fun filled 30 minutes. There`s not a dull moment.

"You`ll never get away with this Black Helmet Man. You are bad and we are good. Your badness will be the end of you and our goodness will triumph. Bad is bad! Good is good! Bad, bad, good, bad!"-Princess Bunhead.

Thumb Wars has been around for some time on import and I`ve always been somewhat dubious about this title. Who would bother with something that sounds like a lame concept? Thumbs? Toes? What? I wouldn`t normally waste my time, but having just watched this I`m glad I had the chance to see it. The DVD has a street price of just £9.99, £7.99 at Play or even £5 from Canadian etailers and with a price like this, I`m going to invest in the rest of the Thumb films. It`s a bargain for 30 minutes worth of laughs. I laughed the second time I watched the movie, and then the third time with the silly commentary track. There`s just something totally thumbtastic about it which I can`t quite put my erm, finger on. Plus there`s no Jar Jar around.

I`ll never look at my digits in the same light again...If you have about £5 to spare, you could do worse than buy this. This gets a big thumbs up! [FFS, -Ed) Sorry.