This film is undeniable proof that shorts, especially MTV created ones, cannot make a good film. "Joe's Apartment" runs out of ideas before the halfway point. The Character Joe rents out an apartment, occupied by acres of cockroaches, who sing and dance and give Joe unwanted company. OK, we get it already.
So how does a film revolving around annoying little roaches extend to 90 minutes? By adding in that predictable subplot involving the hard-to-get love interest for Joe of course, who the viewers automatically know will end up together by the end of the movie. Haven't we seen this predictable boy-gets-girl plot in countless other films? Well, not with singing and dancing roaches. I'll give it that.
Joe somewhat befriends the roaches, even they are annoying and give him grief. Consider a scene where Joe brings a date to his apartment. The roaches hide, and the date suspects nothing. Soon after, when things look as if they're going well for Joe, the roaches fall out of the chandelier and fall all over Joe's date. Soon after, roaches everywhere, terrifying the girl. Joe tells her it's OK, but what woman is going to listen to that? So what does Joe do? He may start off as mad, but he always forgives them. This angers me. These are vindictive, controlling, and annoying roaches who, if I was occupied with them, would drive me to a point to get my apartment exterminated. These roaches cause Joe nothing but grief, and torture, and they invade his privacy; yet the film is supposed to make us laugh.
When the film reaches its inevitable conclusion, I was so annoyed and disgusted by this time that I couldn't feel any of the euphoria the film was trying to feed its viewers. It didn't work.
The film was made my MTV studios and it looks like it should have been a made-for-TV film specifically for MTV. I have not seen the short on which this was based, but I assume it was funnier that this film - it would rely on the roaches singing and dancing routine(s), without the subplots that a full length film has to have to reach its 90 minutes, which just made the cockroaches grow annoying, crude, mean, and tiresome.
So how does a film revolving around annoying little roaches extend to 90 minutes? By adding in that predictable subplot involving the hard-to-get love interest for Joe of course, who the viewers automatically know will end up together by the end of the movie. Haven't we seen this predictable boy-gets-girl plot in countless other films? Well, not with singing and dancing roaches. I'll give it that.
Joe somewhat befriends the roaches, even they are annoying and give him grief. Consider a scene where Joe brings a date to his apartment. The roaches hide, and the date suspects nothing. Soon after, when things look as if they're going well for Joe, the roaches fall out of the chandelier and fall all over Joe's date. Soon after, roaches everywhere, terrifying the girl. Joe tells her it's OK, but what woman is going to listen to that? So what does Joe do? He may start off as mad, but he always forgives them. This angers me. These are vindictive, controlling, and annoying roaches who, if I was occupied with them, would drive me to a point to get my apartment exterminated. These roaches cause Joe nothing but grief, and torture, and they invade his privacy; yet the film is supposed to make us laugh.
When the film reaches its inevitable conclusion, I was so annoyed and disgusted by this time that I couldn't feel any of the euphoria the film was trying to feed its viewers. It didn't work.
The film was made my MTV studios and it looks like it should have been a made-for-TV film specifically for MTV. I have not seen the short on which this was based, but I assume it was funnier that this film - it would rely on the roaches singing and dancing routine(s), without the subplots that a full length film has to have to reach its 90 minutes, which just made the cockroaches grow annoying, crude, mean, and tiresome.