Friday, February 26, 2016

The terrible 90s movie that is Blank Check

Let's take a trip back in time.

A time when people still wrote checks.

A time when Disney was frantically trying to find the next Home Alone and came up with this.


Ok Disney, you got me. I did love Home Alone and I did love this movie back in 1994. You knew just what my 10 year old tastes were. I was throwing my bike in the street on a regular basis to get that cool million. Think of all the Barbies I could buy! I would finally get that horse I always wanted!

For those of you who are not familiar with this Disney "classic", here is the plot. 

Hold onto your butts, things are about to get really terribly unrealistic.

Preston has a rough life. His father is frugal, which makes things tough for Preston. When Preston's grandmother gives him a blank check for his birthday, his father fills it out for $11.00. Why not write it out for $12.00 dad, since it is his 12th birthday.

When Preston is invited to Butch's birthday party he doesn't want to go because Butch picks on him. Preston only has enough money to go on the kiddie rides. Really creative with the bully name there Disney.

Preston's parents are kind of jerks sending him to a birthday party at theme park with barely any money. 

After this party Preston's bike gets run over by a car that happens to be driven by a criminal who just left stolen money at the bank. Seeing cops nearby the ciminal wants to wrap things up quickly so he gives Preston a blank check and tells him his father can fill in the amount. Of course Preston writes the amount for 1 million dollars and in a convoluted, doesn't make sense at all way, it gets cashed by the bank and he gets the money in cash. 


Preston goes on a major shopping spree buying anything he wants, including buying a mansion that looks like a castle. 


Preston pretends he works for a wealthy man named Macintosh, because it's absolutely believable that a 12 year old kid would be working for a millionaire and that the millionaire just happens to want go karts.  

Oh my God this whole movie does not make sense at all and all the adults are terrible.

Preston spends all the money in six days, the criminals are captured, lessons are learned like "money can't buy happiness" (I tend to disagree, money makes me pretty happy) and Preston's father decides he can be a little less frugal.

I would suggest not showing this movie to kids. It gives them unrealistic expectations. You'd probably have to answer a lot of questions such as "what is a check" and "why is that computer so big?" Also, it's just plain terrible.

Just for funsies, here's a then and now of the actor who played Preston. He quit acting in 1994 and is now a musician.



8 comments:

  1. I don't know how I missed that one. Make you wonder, people actually get paid to write that stuff...of course they probably wrote it in about 3 hours.

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    1. It's just terrible. You did not miss anything. It's so bad it's not even played on tv reruns.

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  2. I remember the name of the movie, but never saw it. Sounds like I didn't miss much. Maybe if Disney made it an animated movie and Preston was a dog...or a dinosaur...or something, it may have been better.

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  3. Sorry I missed this one, will have to look for the DVD... NOT!

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  4. Hoo boy, that's so lame. Come on, Disney, you can do better than that!

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  5. I loved this movie except for the fact that no money laundering ever took place.

    The same marked bills were just handed back. Why would you even give the marked bills to the back when you were just going to write a fake check to get the same marked bills right back?

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    1. Ha ha good point Kasim! So many "that doesn't even make sense" moments in this movie.

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