REVIEW: Ivan the Incredible

You thought I was kidding, didn't you? Back last year, when I sat through Freddy Frogface, I knew that this would have to be next. But Ivan the Incredible is not the sort of thing that one just rushes into. Like deciding to willfully submit to torture, it's the kind of thing that requires not only a fair amount of consideration, but a soundly broken spirit. This is not a film for the faint of heart; I've just seen it and I'm still trying my best to make sense of it. Before we begin, it's worth noting that, in the film's home country of Denmark, it goes by the title of Gummi T, which roughly translates to Jelly T. The "T", in this case, stands for "Tarzan". Believe it or not, this is a detail that is very much relevant to the plot.

The film opens by introducing us to the main character, a young boy named Ivan. He lives alone with his father, a man who seems to be struggling with severe mental issues. For whatever reason, he idolizes the literary character of Tarzan and, believing that he embodies all that a man should be, decides to raise his son to follow in the footsteps of the Lord of the Apes. Ivan, it turns out, is bad at everything. Not only is he a scrawny wimp who gets bullied every day at school, but he's also illiterate and appears to suffer from some form of schizophrenia. Often he sneaks away to an abandoned warehouse he has filled with anthropomorphic trash-sculptures he has conversations with, like a page out of John Wayne Gacy's private notebook. Still following? Because we haven't even gotten to the witch.

You see, a wandering witch has come to town, peddling bonafide miracles. This puts her in direct competition with Ivan's father, who has recently taken up a career as a Coach. Not for a sports team or a school, just in general. For a fee, he will coach people. It was around the time he forced Ivan to climb a tree in front of the whole town (angrily berating him when he inevitably fails) that I realized this film was actually painting a stark portrait of the toll that unchecked psychological issues can take on familial relationships. Feeling desperate, Ivan goes to the witch in search of a miracle that will make him the best at everything. She obliges, telling him that the magic potion she's concocted will allow him to be the absolute best at whatever he wants to do, but only for a day. However, she forgets the one ingredient that limits the potion to only work for one day, which really seems like the worst mistake anyone in her position could possibly make, given the circumstances of what she was messing with.

Ivan goes to school next day, wielding his newfound godlike abilities like a school shooter. He terrorizes and publicly humiliates everyone and anyone who once mocked or questioned him without discretion or subtlety; at this point, I'm a hundred percent certain that someone could pass this off as a character drama about the dangers of unchecked mental illness. Now that he's the best at everything, Ivan's dad decides to accredit his son's unholy powers to his superb coaching strategy (despite said strategy boiling down to verbal abuse and reminders to be like Tarzan). This nets Ivan and his father immense wealth and fame the world over, as this awful piece of human garbage continues to neglect and exploit the talent that his only son attained through literal black magic. Eventually, Ivan tires of being his dad's mealticket and suffers a violent outburst that I can only describe as reminiscent of both Chronicle and Carrie. He immediately feels guilty, however, and reconciles with his deadbeat dad just in time for the witch to force-feed him the final ingredient, dooming him to a life of mediocrity once more. Roll credits.

It's a trip, that's for sure. Often I felt entranced by what I was watching, despite how ungodly ugly the entire thing is. This is the height of sweatshop CGI, lifting several models wholesale out of Freddy Frogface. Everyone's got the same beady, dead little eyes and stringy hair; I've seen bowel movements with a more appealing aesthetic than this movie. The animation is stiff, the lipsync is off, and absolutely none of this matters because look at the plot which I just described to you. This is a movie that does not fail because of its look. This is a movie that fails because of its everything. Every conceivable aspect of this film is just offputting, I honestly don't know what could have resulted in this being made. I considered making a "there's something rotten in the state of Denmark" joke here, but this movie has pushed me to my limit as it is, and I'm not entirely sure I want to take that final step off the ledge.

Ivan the Incredible. What a concept. It seems like the low-hanging fruit, when discussing a movie like this, to describe it as feeling like a look inside the mind of a serial killer. Having watched this in its entirety, I need to cast aside all pretenses and say that this movie seriously feels like the product of a diseased mind. It's so surreal, so mean-spirited, so ugly in every single sense of the word. I don't know who would make something like this and I don't know who would unironically enjoy it. That said, I kind of love it. It's exactly that kind of terrible, like The Room or Hard Ticket to Hawaii, where it's just so baffling that it's the perfect thing to lose yourself in while heavily under the influence and (hopefully) surrounded by friends. In that regard, I cannot recommend it enough, but do understand what you're getting yourself into. When you hit play on Ivan the Incredible, you're in for a wild ride.

Check back next year, when I finally get around to reviewing Otto the Rhino.