Can you imagine a film soundtrack filled with off-beat, low-key covers of Beatles hits?  Can you imagine a film even overtly copping the title of John Lennon’s iconic “Imagine”? 

Can you imagine it all actually working, and the film even being worthy of that big-ticket, megawatt muse?  Well, imagine that.

Veteran animation director Karey Kirkpatrick teams up with on-again, way-off-again comic actor Eddie Murphy to pull a live-action rabbit out of the summer blockbuster-shadow-hat, and for my money tops all but Star Trek for creativity and fun… with only a smidgen of CGI, and none where you’d expect it.  This is pure cinematic magic.

It’s also very light fluff, of course, about as substantial as the cottonwood seed blowing around driveways in the Great Northwest right now.  But honestly, when it comes to mainstream films that are inventive, family-friendly, ingratiating, and laugh-out-loud funny without resorting to gross-out humor—not even Shrek and its sequels managed to avoid stooping that low—I’ll take this kind of film any day over summer fare like The Dark Knight or Terminator Salvation.

But let’s talk about the film, not me.

Eddie Murphy plays Evan, a dad-in-absentia to grade-schooler Olivia.  He’s a wildly successful financial consultant locked in a duel-to-the-death competition with Johnny Whitefeather as successor to the firm’s founder.  He’s got a head for business, and not much else—particularly parenting.

Olivia’s got her own problems.  With the aid of her “Goo Gaa,” a treasured satin-edged baby blanket (very much like one my wife owns!), Olivia entertains a very vivid fantasy life with a bevy of princesses and their queen.  When Evan takes Olivia to work with him one day—because she tends to over-stress out at school—Evan and Olivia both discover that the princesses, uh, have a talent for inexplicable insight that mightily resembles insider trading.

This, naturally, puts Evan on the fast track to replace Whitefeather as the Finance Mystic Du Jour—and puts the film on the fast track to laughs aplenty.  Evan’s board-room meltdown as he takes his client on a tour through Koopida’s and Moppida’s financial notes is one of the funniest things Murphy has done on film in years; and the imaginary princess-wooing that ensues (when K’s and M’s seeming nonsense proves prophetic) is simultaneously sweet, endearing, and gently masterful.  Murphy’s not mugging here.  He’s actually playing a real person who, because of circumstances, engages in amusing behavior.

The best surprise for me was that, for a fantasy film, Imagine That manages to go where no film has gone for a long time precisely because it eschews special effects.  Unlike, say, Bridge to Terabithia, which not only insisted on visualizing glimpses of the kids’ fantasy lives but treated the audience to a full-blown realization of it in the denouement, Imagine That asks us to actually, yes, imagine right along with Olivia.  And that puts the pressure not on the CGI department but right back on the director and the stars of this show, Murphy and newcomer Yara Shahidi—who is a delight.  They all deliver.

Thematically, the film also strikes solid ground in spite of the fluff.  In an opening voiceover behind a montage of Evan at work, Olivia tells us that this is a story about a man who used to be “the King of Somewhere” but lost his crown on “a trip to Nowhere.”  On the surface, we associate Somewhere with Success, and we can draw the implication that Evan is on a downward career path.  But that’s not the trip Olivia’s talking about.  Very soon we discover that what Olivia is waxing metaphorical of Evan’s failure as a father and husband, not as a financial advisor.  To Olivia, dad’s work is as illusory as Koopida and Moppida are to Evan.  And the journey, for both of them, will require them to let go of the illusory in favor of the real. 

Along the way, Evan invests enough in Olivia’s world that it becomes real for him, too.  To begin with, he “plays along” not because it’s fun (as it is for Olivia) but because he must cater these whimsical goddesses in order to succeed.  As his need becomes an obsession, his dependence on the Goo Gaa becomes even more outrageous than Olivia’s.  Miraculously, the moment in which Evan regains his crown actually feels earned.

Ultimately, the film asks: If you were handed the keys to the kingdom, what would you do with them?  And the answers that Kirkpatrick and company come up will pleasantly surprise you.

As a bonus, all of the supporting performances—including bits from Ronny Cox, Martin Sheen, and toe-to-toe comedic sparring from Thomas Haden Church as the marginally-native but stereotype-baiting Whitefeather—are first rate, memorable characters all.  Kirkpatrick’s background may be animation, but he handles live-action performances deftly.  His work with Shahidi is equally good, giving her just enough to do without demanding that she become the Next Young It Girl first time out of the box.

This is a family film that will truly satisfy adults—and particularly fathers.

It’s that time of year, guys.  Grow up.  Get that crown back on… and take your family along when you see Imagine That.  Your kids will love you for it.

Imagine That is rated PG for “some mild language and brief questionable behavior.”  You know, there are some cases when the MPAA just seems way overly protective… and then there’s the PG-13 Norbit, where they just seemed to turn their brains off.  I supposed that some parents might object to entertainment in which kids are less-than-ideal role models.  But really.  By this standard, Tom Sawyer or Penrod would be rated PG.  Silly.  No worries here… consider this a hard G, unless you strenuously object to the abuse of Red Bull, or mixing your condiments in a wasteful manner.

Courtesy of a national publicist, Greg attended a press junket screening of Imagine That.