Movie Thoughts: Hundreds of Beavers (2022)

 

• Released: September 29th, 2022
• Directed by: Mike Cheslik
• Running time: 1h 48min
• Rating 5/5

Synopsis

A drunken applejack salesman must become the best fur trapper ever if he wishes to marry a merchant's daughter.

My Thoughts

I saw a few positive reviews of this movie but did steer clear of spoilers because I still wanted to see it myself. And boy, am I glad that I did. Because this is genuinely and unironically one of the best movies I've seen in recent years.

Is it stupid and silly? Yes. Does it take itself seriously? Not at all. Does it have a budget? That of a potato. Is there dialogue? Almost none. And it's absolutely glorious.

This movie is just two hours of complete and utter fun. And not just stupid, silly fun (though that's definitely also present), but there's just some genuinely well-constructed jokes and especially running gags spread throughout the movie.

Jean Kayak is also a fun main character to follow. He's not a good guy, you're clearly not supposed to like him, but he is really fun to follow on his antics as he goes from zero to being a great fur trapper. What's also nice about this character is that, as silly as the situations he winds up in are, he does genuinely learn from his mistakes and adapts to them accordingly, thus allowing him to become a master trapper in the end. And yes, he does end up trapping those hundreds of beavers he needs.

But even then when you'd think the movie would be over there's still a lot to go, and we go on this genuinely crazy subplot inside the beaver's dam to get back the pelts the beavers took from Jean Kayak, and it just become more over-the-top with each passing moment, and it's great.

And, while this movie clearly didn't have a huge budget, I also really admire how they never really half-ass any of it. Sure, the animal costumes look cheap, but it makes it work and it honestly becomes a big part of the movie's charm after a while. And especially once we start to near the climax we start to see some genuinely impressive things being done with the backgrounds or costumes or whatnot. So even if this movie looks cheap, it never feels cheap. They were clearly trying and putting in a lot of effort.

So yes, this silly movie is genuinely one of the best movies I've recently seen. It's clever, it's fun, it tries really hard, and all of that without dialogue throughout most of it.