Review: Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (DMC #64)
Herbie’s adventures continue! This week we watched Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, the third film in the Herbie series and the sixty-fourth film in the Disnerd Movie Challenge! Skip head for our review if you watched with us. For the rest of you, you can check our synopsis below.
Synopsis
After a twelve-year hiatus from racing, driver Jim Douglas and his mechanic, Wheely Applegate, arrive in Monte Carlo with their love bug, Herbie. On the same day, a very rare and very large diamond arrives at a museum and is placed under the most technologically advanced security measures by Monsieur Ribeaux. While Jim, Wheely, and Herbie check in at the race, two thieves—Quincey and Max—emerge from their hiding place and steal the diamond while triggering the alarm. The thieves run into the race crowd and stow the diamond in Herbie’s gas tank as the police swarm the scene, but after the police clear Jim and Wheely to leave the area, they drive off with Herbie to the qualifier race—much to the thieves’ alarm! During the Trans France Race qualifier, Herbie becomes smitten with racecar #7 (a Lancia we later learn is named Giselle) and begins driving erratically in order to get Giselle’s attention, causing both cars to be disqualified—which angers Giselle’s driver, Diane Darcy. She accuses Jim of trying to force her off the track because she’s a woman. The race officials give both cars a second chance to qualify, but halfway through the next qualifier, Herbie is again distracted by #7. Later that day at the race convention, the thieves show up looking for Herbie. They wait until the lights are dimmed for a presentation, then sneak over to where Herbie was parked. Only, Herbie isn’t there—he snuck out to see the Lancia. Herbie follows Giselle to a bistro, but a truck spatters him with exhaust before he drives over, and Giselle is unimpressed with his dirty appearance. Herbie washes off in a fountain and returns with flowers for Giselle. That changes Giselle’s mind, and the two cars drive off on a date around Italy. When Diane leaves the bistro and discovers her car is missing, Jim and Wheely arrive looking for Herbie. The bistro waiter can hardly believe what he saw, but he tells both parties that their cars stole each other. Jim, Wheely, and Diane soon find their cars taking a romantic river boat cruise.
That night at the hotel, Inspector Bouchet and Detective Fontenoy arrive to question Jim and Wheely about the missing diamond. Meanwhile, Quincey and Max try to break into Herbie’s gas tank, but Herbie thwarts them before driving off and hiding. The next day is another qualifying race for Herbie. After a sluggish start, he decides to show off for Giselle and scores a record-breaking time on the track. Diane and Giselle race in the following heat, and Giselle matches Herbie’s record-breaking time, but Diane refuses to believe Jim when he credits her car with the victory, not Diane’s driving skill. She thinks Jim is crazy for suggesting their cars are falling in love. As Jim and Wheely leave the race with Herbie, the thieves drive up alongside them and force them to pull over at gunpoint. Herbie comes to the rescue and helps Jim and Wheely fight off the thieves before driving away. Wheely suspects Diane hired the thugs to intimidate them, and tells Jim to confront Diane. Jim does so, but Diane, outraged at the accusation, chucks things at him until Jim leaves. Meanwhile, Quincey and Max regretfully report to their boss, Double X, aka Inspector Bouchet, that they’ve failed. The inspector is about to berate the thieves when Jim and Wheely show up asking to place Herbie in protective custody. The over-eager Detective Fontenoy volunteers to personally see to it that the car is kept safely hidden where no one can find it, thwarting the Inspector’s plan to search the car for the diamond. The next day is the official start of the Trans France Race. The Inspector and the thieves are at the ready to search the car before the race, but Herbie is nowhere to be found. Diane apologizes to Jim for the night before and the two wish each other good luck in the race. With five minutes to go before the start of the race and Herbie still missing, Giselle refuses to budge. Wheely lies to Giselle, saying Herbie ditched her and that she’s better off on her own. Jim joins in, and the car finally takes its place in the starting lineup. The race starts without Herbie, much to Jim and Wheely’s disappointment. Detective Fontenoy finally arrives in an armored truck with Herbie, but now Herbie refuses to budge because he’s looking for Giselle. Wheely lies to Herbie, telling him that Giselle didn’t wait for him, which makes Herbie angrily launch into the race. Inspector Bouchet tells the thieves to obtain the diamond in Monte Carlo, but Detective Fontenoy tells his boss he’s phoned ahead to the police in Monte Carlo to have them search the car as he now suspects the thieves may have hidden the diamond in the vehicle.
Herbie manages to catch up to the rest of the race, but he’s driven off the road into a lake by the lead car. When Herbie rejoins the race and takes the lead, the thieves divert him off course to a rock slide area and attempt to corner him, but Herbie triggers a rockslide to fall on top of the thieves’ car. When Herbie rejoins the race, Jim notices a knocking sound in the gas tank, but Wheely insists it’s nothing. Herbie starts to struggle, so Jim pulls over and they inspect the gas tank and discover the diamond just as the thieves catch up to them. A fight ensues, but Jim, Wheely, and Herbie manage to defeat the thieves and tie them up on the side of the road before rejoining the race with the diamond in tow. The thieves call Inspector Bouchet to warn him. As Herbie continues on the racetrack, they pass Giselle and Diane—they’ve gone off the road into a lake! Jim initially drives past, but he begins to think they should’ve stopped. He tries to turn Herbie around, but Herbie won’t budge, so Jim reveals Wheely’s lie. Herbie races back to help Giselle, and Jim helps pull Diane out of the submerged vehicle. Diane finally witnesses the cars moving on their own and finally believes Jim, but there’s no way she can continue the race. Herbie doesn’t want to race without Giselle, but Diane tells him he should race and win it for Giselle. Herbie agrees, but he makes Wheely get on his knees and apologize before letting the mechanic back in the car. In Monte Carlo, Inspector Bouchet tells the Monte Carlo police to disregard Detective Fontenoy’s instructions. Back on the race course, Herbie overtakes the lead car to win the race. As the celebratory crowd clears, Inspector Bouchet arrives to congratulate Jim and Wheely, who in turn show the Inspector the diamond they found in the gas tank. Just then, Detective Fontenoy arrives with Monsieur Ribeaux. As he and Monsieur Ribeaux go over the facts of the case, they reveal that Inspector Bouchet was the only person with the security codes—he was the mastermind! The Inspector tries to escape with the diamond, but Herbie stops him. The diamond is safely returned to Monsieur Ribeaux and Detective Fontenoy arrests Inspector Bouchet. Later, Jim and Diane are leaving an even together when the valet tells them that their cars stole each other. The two call a taxi and join their cars for a romantic double date watching fireworks over the river while Wheely, also at the river, attempts to woo one of the women who presented the awards at the end of the race.
Thoughts Before Watching
Megan: I feel like I’ve said this with every Herbie movie so far, but maybe this is the Herbie movie I remember seeing as a kid? Either way, I do enjoy watching this love bug, so I’m hoping this film will be much like the other Herbie films we’ve seen so far.
Kevin: I’m a bit mixed on how I feel about this. On one hand, it shouldn’t be a surprise at this point that I prefer Disney’s animated films over their live-action ones. After coming off two back-to-back animated films, I’m just a tiny bit underwhelmed to go back to another live-action movie so soon. On the other hand, Herbie is just too stinking cute, and I’m so glad he’s back! This loveable little love bug was fun in the previous films of the series, so I imagine this one will be similar in humor.
Thoughts After Watching
A bit of a let down
Megan: Well, this definitely isn’t the Herbie film I remember. I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps what I remembered was never actually a Herbie film, but an episode of the Herbie TV show, since I definitely remember viewing it on TV (either as a TV movie or a TV show). Either way, this has to be the most forgettable film of the bunch. It’s just so…boring!
Kevin: It’s really disappointing to say, but this was very boring compared to the previous films in the franchise. I mean, I wouldn’t say the first two Herbie films were exactly amazing; I enjoyed watching them once but probably would not catch them again any time soon. But I didn’t really expect Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo to be so dull. Yes, like many of the other live-action comedies we watched, this film has a few good moments and funny jokes, but they were very few and far between. It was difficult to get into this film largely thanks to unanswered questions and a distorted plot. For one, why doesn’t the timeline match up with the first movie, given that we’re following the same main character? What was the importance of the diamond robbery, when it has little to do with Jim Douglas’s story? These questions aren’t the only issue. There’s just…nothing. There are no stakes to get involved in. There are no characters to enjoy—even Herbie is less interesting in this movie. I don’t know if this was the same crew who made the first film, but it’s like the filmmakers just took the characters (and in Jim Douglas’s case, the actor) from the original movie and slapped together a script with little thought to character development. We don’t seem to be alone in this opinion either; this film holds a lower reception rating on various sites such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic compared to the first two.
All plot and no story makes these characters dull
Megan: Plenty of things happen in this film, but we don’t really care about any of it because the film lacks emotional resonance, and honestly, it comes down to poor character and plot development. I think Herbie is supposed to be the protagonist of this film, since it is largely about his romantic storyline, but this presents a core problem: Herbie cannot emote in the same way humans can. While I praised the previous Herbie films for bringing Herbie to life and “animating” his parts to convey emotions, this latest film in the series seems to have neglected that component. Herbie still has plenty of movements, but the nuance of emotions is completely lost. Instead we get lots of big movements that can be a bit confusing, like when Herbie freaks out in front of the bistro when he’s trying to flirt with Giselle (see the movie clip below). Is he trying to woo her? Is he excited? Is he trying to impress her? Is he nervous? Or has he simply lost his mind?
Megan: This lack of nuance makes some moments of the film confusing rather than heartwarming, and that in turn makes it harder for us to relate to Herbie and care about his journey. The other issue is that the primary antagonistic conflict—the stolen diamond—isn’t fully integrated into the story. It’s not personal to Herbie, so he has no real stake in the outcome. Heck, he doesn’t even seem to realize the stolen diamond is in his gas tank for most of the film! If the thieves had instead placed the stolen diamond in Giselle’s gas tank, and Herbie, already smitten with her, witnessed it and spent the film trying to either protect her or help her get the diamond to the authorities, that might have made things more personal for Herbie and more fully integrated the diamond theft plotline into the story. As it stands, however, the diamond heist seems like a weak attempt to bring in a non-racecar-related antagonist. The result is a racecar antagonist who’s barely a threat (the lead red car which is driven by Bruno Von Stickle), a heist plotline that feels out of place, and a love story that lacks heart.
Lack of originality
Megan: Another factor that makes this film boring? The repeated gags. This may only be the third film in the series, but it feels like it could be the hundredth for how frequently the same gags are repeated. We have the expected antics of Herbie coming alive to thwart the villains or those who speak ill of him, as evidenced by him purposefully spouting oil onto the boot of the traffic cop in the opening sequence. We see Don Knotts as Wheely nearly falling out Herbie’s open door, reminiscent of how Buddy Hackett as Tennessee nearly fell out Herbie’s open door in The Love Bug. By now I think every Herbie film has shown Herbie flying through the air and landing in a body of water. Whether he skims the water’s surface, paddles through the water like a boat, or drives along the bottom of a pond or lake, it seems one cannot make a Herbie movie without placing the car in water at some point. Then, of course, there’s the signature physics-defying move that wins the race—in this case, Herbie driving upside-down inside a tunnel to overtake the lead car. By this point, it all feels so formulaic and repetitive. Where’s the originality? I realize it’s a car, and somewhat limited in what can be done with it, but even so, must the filmmakers resort to the exact same gags they used in the films before? Isn’t there something new to add?
Kevin: I couldn’t agree more with this. At this point, the Herbie movies are following a formula. As I said above, this movie comes off like the filmmakers were just taking the same plot and main character from the first movie and cobbled together a haphazard script. I can’t help but imagine the writers huddled together when coming up with this movie, reading over a checklist of all the things from The Love Bug that met positive reviews and checking off each thing they could add to the third film. Such is the case with the gags of the third movie. It’s was interesting the first couple times, but now it’s just stale. I mean, I get that there’s probably little you can do with a story this basic, but then I’m not a writer. But honestly, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo feels like a 1970s version of a cash grab, nothing more than an attempt to capitalize on what made the original film enjoyable while offering nothing new.
Is this your attempt at a strong female character?
Megan: For a film that introduces a female racecar driver in the same year (1977) that Janet Guthrie became the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500, I’m pretty disappointed. For one thing, the film absolutely fails the Bechdel test because Diane Darcy never speaks to another female character throughout the entire movie—not even her own car! It’s not all that surprising given the largely male filmmaking team. What’s worse, though, is that a film that on the surface would seem to support women becoming successful and competitive racecar drivers actually appears to send the complete opposite message. Though no male character in the film outright speaks against women being allowed to race, Diane’s character says quite a lot, and through her eyes we get the sense that she’s been facing intimidation from male competitors for a long time before this race. Take these snippets of dialogue for example:
DIANE: You think that because I’m a woman driver, you can get away with anything you please! Well, I’m not a pigeon for your fun and games. I’ve had it with you clowns!
RACE OFFICIAL: Well, what were you doing out there, Douglas?
JIM: Well, it’s kinda hard to explain, sir…
DIANE: Not for me, it isn’t. He doesn’t want a woman in the race.
RACE OFFICIAL: Look, Miss Darcy, you’ll be given another chance to qualify. We’re terribly sorry.
DIANE: You’re sorry, he’s sorry, everybody’s sorry. But I didn’t qualify!
JIM: Congratulations!
DIANE: Thank you! Oh, and thank you for staying off the track. It’s one way I can prove what I can do.
JIM: Well, it wasn’t exactly you.
DIANE: You’ve got a real problem about women in racing, Mr. Douglas. What is it? We drive too slow…or too fast?
While Jim’s responses come off quite sexist from Diane’s point of view, we in the audience are in on the secret that Herbie and Giselle are “alive.” This puts the audience in Jim’s perspective, which makes me believe that the audience is meant to side with Jim. Since Jim often sees Diane as difficult or unreasonable, it makes it hard for the audience to side with Diane. Initially, I think this is done on purpose to make Diane out to be a potential villain so it’s more believable that Jim and Wheely would suspect her of hiring thugs to intimidate them. Of course, it is in that conversation that the men begin to speak ill of Diane, and women in general, though still not directly about women on the racetrack:
WHEELY: They never say what they mean. That’s what makes the female of the species deadlier than the male.
JIM: You read that someplace.
WHEELY: Yes, and I’ve got a mother, three sisters, and two ex-wives to prove it. They never told me they wanted me out of the house, but every time I came home, the lock was changed.
JIM: Well I don’t take that kind of strong-arm stuff from anybody, I don’t care if they’re male or female!
WHEELY: Then somebody better teach this female the rules of the game before the game is over.
JIM: Yeah, well if she doesn’t know ‘em now, she will when I get through with her!
We’re supposed to see Jim’s threats as humorous since they’re juxtaposed with the next scene where Diane holds her own against Jim’s accusations. However, I didn’t find much humor in it. For one thing, it seems Wheely has a history of offending women and not making any strides to understand where they’re coming from. The other issue is this threat of male violence (whether verbal or physical) to make a female character obey the rules of a patriarchal society. Jim feels confident in this exchange about confronting a woman in a way that I don’t believe he’d feel confident confronting a male competitor. The argument between them, however, further problematizes everything. First of all, it takes place in Diane’s room. How did Jim know where she was staying? How did he get in there? Did he force himself in or was he invited? We don’t know, because the argument starts off right in the middle:
DIANE: Who hired thugs? I am just as good as anybody out there on that track! And I don’t need anybody to win my races for me!
JIM: We…
DIANE: That is the trouble with you, all of you! You don’t think a woman can do anything! […] “Women are supposed to be nurses and secretaries and school teachers!” I’ve taken that all my life! I took it from my mother and my father! And my aunts and my uncles! But I am not going to take it from you! […]
JIM: Whoa!
DIANE: Coward! I’m a race driver and I can win it on my own!
JIM: Oh! You know, I think you can.
From what we’re shown, it’s less of an argument, and more of an angry rant from Diane. The film, again, shows everything from Jim’s perspective, so Diane comes off looking, I hate to say it, but, hysterical. In every interaction with Jim up until this point she’s only had one mode: anger. Because we are never privy to any conversations Diane might have with other people in her life, we don’t get to see her as a fully developed character. Now, knowing how the world of racing is still predominantly male, and understanding how women in every male-dominated industry have struggled to claim a place for themselves, often against subtle and not-so-subtle male intimidation and harassment, I do think Diane’s rage is valid. Here she is, a lone woman racing against a sea of men. It sounds like she’s struggled to get here, and she’s had a long history of being harassed by men who didn’t think she belonged on the racetrack. The problem is the film doesn’t present her struggle as something audiences can empathize with. As a woman, it’s hard for me to root for Diane because I only see her when she’s righteously indignant—even though I want her to race and be good at it! I can imagine that men watching this movie when it came out might have been sitting there thinking “See, this is why women shouldn’t race.” Perhaps the filmmakers were intending to make the case that women deserve to be on the racetrack as much as men, but because the largely male creative team didn’t have female voices weighing in, the film unfortunately appears to take the opposite argument.
What’s more, after all of this conflict that was instigated by Herbie and exacerbated by Jim and Wheely, Diane is the first one to apologize! Jim might start the dialogue in that direction, but the first one to say the word “sorry” is still Diane when Jim should be apologizing to her! After all, it’s his car that started this mess, and he’s the one who showed up at her place and wrongly accused her of hiring thugs to knock him out of the race. As far as I’m concerned, he got what was coming to him when Diane started chucking objects at him to get him to leave—he was invading her space!
Then, of course, to top it all off, Diane doesn’t even get to finish the race. She loses control of her car (after she had shown such skill in the qualifiers!) and ends up sunk, with her and her car yet another set of damsels in distress in need of rescue from the male protagonists. If the male filmmakers were trying to create a strong female protagonist, they did a pretty messy job of it. I much preferred Carole Bennett’s character in The Love Bug. She felt like a progressive move in the right direction, while Diane Darcy, even in the groundbreaking role of a female racecar driver in 1977, feels like a setback.
I mean, this wasn’t a great romance either, but where did this happy ending go?!
What on earth happened between the first movie and this one?
Kevin: I can’t really phrase this section in any other way. Seriously, where in the life of our main character Jim Douglas does this story take place? According to Jim, it’s been twelve years since he and Herbie last raced. It’s not explicitly stated that this race is the one shown during the climax of The Love Bug, but I believe we as the audience are meant to make the connection that they are the same race. The problem is that this time gap raises several questions. First, what happened to Carole, Jim’s love interest from the first movie? Did their marriage ultimately not work out? We’re not given any answers to this at all, not a single mention of Carole by name or even a hint that Jim once had a wife. Since it’s clear this movie is supposed to be within the same timeline, Carole’s complete absence would imply that the marriage ended. But considering that Jim never mentions her one bit makes me think that the marriage ended bitterly. I’m inclined to think the latter, because I wasn’t all that convinced of their chemistry in the first movie anyway. There’s also the matter of Jim and Herbie’s relationship. In Herbie Rides Again, we’re told that Herbie’s previous owner (not actually named to be Jim, but heavily implied) left Herbie to race foreign cars in Europe. Part of what made the story of The Love Bug so interesting was the dynamic between both man and car. Herbie was shown to be dismayed and hurt when Jim indicated he wanted to ditch the Volkswagen and drive other cars. In the second movie, we see that Jim decided to leave Herbie behind, and we almost can’t help but be angry at Jim for having missed out on a gem like Herbie. When we get to the third movie…well…what exactly is going on? Jim and Herbie are reunited, and are very clearly on good terms. So, it’s just let bygones be bygones, then? I think this was such a wasted opportunity because it could have been used to truly develop the characters a bit more. There’s no mention whatsoever of the events of the previous movies or that Jim once slighted Herbie. I get that twelve years is a long time, and things easily could have changed since then, but the lack of answers to these questions only serves to disconnect this movie from the rest of the franchise. At least the second movie made some connection by having the same setting and hinting at previously established characters, but this movie does none of that. As a consequence, this film is a sequel only in the sense it has the same original main character. Other than that, however, there isn’t anything else connecting this film to what came before.
Another Disney veteran come and gone
Kevin: We’ve been watching Dean Jones since That Darn Cat. When he arrived on screen, Hayley Mills was on her way out. Although Mills more or less acted as the same character throughout her films, she got to appear in movies with a variety of genres. Unfortunately, Dean Jones’s career at Disney wasn’t so varied. In just about every role he’s had for this studio, Jones has played the straight man caught up in ridiculous and wacky circumstances, and every one of those movies were comedies. As a result, we never got to see Jones’s versatility as an actor, provided he had any to begin with. It’s clear that Disney had no other ideas when trying to come up with characters for many of these films. I wonder if the lead characters were designed specifically with Jones in mind (after all, he had a multi-film contract), or if the writers were just lacking in ideas and rather lazily decided Jones was the best man for the job in order to use up his contract. As it turned out, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo was the very last theatrical film Jones worked on for the studio. While he would go on to appear in several television shows for Disney, including a series based on the Herbie stories, there would be no further theatrically released films with Jones. He was reportedly absent from the second Herbie film because he did not like where the script was going. I can only wonder why this script managed to bring him back. Given that neither one of us enjoyed this film very much, this being his last film with Disney is a very unfortunate send-off.
