Holes (2003)

Based on a popular kid’s novel of the same name Holes is a unique Disney offering that aims very high and subsequently hits somewhere in the high-middle. It’s often inspiring in terms of how hard they really tried but it isn’t always very fun to watch. 

Shia LeBeouf, hot off his Even Stevens fame, stars as a teenage boy from a cursed family who is falsely accused of a petty crime and sent to a boys camp to do hard labor. Doing what exactly? Digging holes, and as you’ve probably guessed, because it’s the first thing that crossed your mind since you aren’t stupid, there is a covert reason behind the need to have teams of teenage boys dig holes out in the Texas desert every day. Do you think it’s treasure? Then you won’t be surprised by anything here. 

The real magic in this movie are the performances by the proprietors of the labor camp played by the always excellent Jon Voight, Delmar O’Donnell (who also goes by the name Tim Blake Nelson) and, I can’t freaking believe it, Sigourney Weaver, who plays a sadistic two faced villain so incredibly badass that she wears rattlesnake venom laced nail polish. Wait until you see what she does with it too. 

So Weaver’s the granddaughter of a crazy old coot who has himself been cursed, under the most painfully hamfisted and contrived circumstances, and like Shia LeBeouf she is afflicted until the wrong done in the past is made right. Meanwhile, as fate would have, LeBeef (don't you always want to call him that?) is befriended by the quiet descendent of the, get this, very same gypsy woman (played by Cat Woman) that cursed his own family, giving him in turn the opportunity to make right what was done wrong and save his family from their constant misfortune. To explain further is hard because it’s actually all incredibly convoluted, painfully slow at times, and not a little hokey....but you got to give it to them, it’s also completely new. 

Hole’s is good, nicely produced, mildly entertaining family fair wrestling with an ambitious and overly knotted plot the leads to a few too many flashbacks for its own good. At the same time it can beautiful to look at, has a cool soundtrack, and is often very clever, except when it’s stupid. 

I give this strange, very un-Disney movie 3.1 out of 5 lizard infested holes.....filled with gold.