All Reviews

It was a weird experience to read this screenplay, usually I put down works like this after a couple of pages, as soon as the red-lights signaling an overdose of inane foolishness start blinking. But I read this script to the very end, looking for a key to interpret it. At page 114 I found it in the line "This is a farce. You can’t be serious." I think that's the right way to take this script: a rather dumb farce which is not funny, rather costly to make, and totally pointless. Even considering the madness of producing a film like this with a good casting and first-class production values, who would go watch it? Very few people in the USA, nobody at all abroad. I just read that it's getting more and more difficult to lure people into theaters, and I doubt that films based on scripts like this could do that. It makes "Transformers" seem smart by comparison. The most astounding thing about this screenplay is that it won, and I'm not surprised that now Amazon Studios is trying to make it funnier involving the collaboration of other writers. I would be more surprised if someone comes up with the right idea to make this script work: perhaps by casting anthropomorphic animals instead of real actors, with an orang-utang as Franklin and a billy-goat as Washington. Or maybe lookalikes of real contemporary politicians playing their ancestors' caricatures. I don't want to be completely negative, and so I must point out that the pace is quick enough, the flashbacks timely, and the formatting decent.

The writing is good. However, have you ever seen mis-spellings, type o’s, bad grammar or whatever on the screen? Duh… it’s a movie not a book. I would buy a poorly written script with a great concept over a beautifully written script with a boring or stupid theme. This was a cute idea, but there is no way in hell anyone is going to produce it. Why? There is no audience, it’s an expensive period piece and it shouldn't even be a movie. If anything, it might make a clever play. Who keeps awarding these prizes to scripts that should never be made into movies?

How did this ever win? Or get read past page 3?

What a total slap in the face to the decent writers on this site.

I was curious to read a "winner." Wow, really? This was a top script winner? I'll say upfront that I'm sorry and I don't intent to be rude to the writer, but come on. Never once did it capture my imagination, which is entirely necessary with such an...unusual... premise. And, the bad formatting was completely distracting. Sorry, don't get it.

What I liked about this script: The author had moments of pure, unadulterated genius. Flashes of imagination that by themselves could make a movie, and a sense of humor that reminds me of the best of Danny McBride and Ben Best.

What irritated me: Anachronisms like a 1956 Thunderbird and references to hooters. Unnecessary tangents like the George Washington cherry tree flashbacks. (Wasn't funny enough to justify the detour.) Making Benjamin Franklin a pot-bellied septugenarian with the combat skills of a Navy Seal.

You really know the format. The dialog was mostly well done. The comedy at times was brilliant.

Here are some thoughts that may make the story better:

Ax the cherry tree flashbacks. And "A bullet a day..."

If you absolutely have to have a '56 Ford Thunderbird in the story, to me, there should be some kind of reason for it. You can't just stick it in the script and leave it. Maybe Ben Franklin is a time traveler. Maybe he and Washington, though rivals, are emissaries from The Bavarian Illuminati of the future, dedicated to fostering democracy through the ages.

I'm looking forward to your next project. I can see your potential.

The problem I had with this script was that the (many) authors who have now tackled this script still haven't been able to come up with a movie that is "realistic." Meaning, from the moment I started reading this it just felt forced. It felt like people were honestly trying too hard.

The concept is what's funny and amusing here, but as it is currently executed it just doesn't deliver. It appears as if a bunch of comedy writers have just come together to do punch-up on a script that wasn't very good to begin with.

It is a farce when it could be a satire. It is corny where it could be creative. It is silly where it could be somber.

Having the American forefather's call each other names and drink and be slightly-foul mouthed is kind of funny...but, again, only on paper. Once you apply it to a full length script it gets old very, very quickly. In fact, that's the problem with this movie on the whole. It would be a great short film or viral video, but I don't think it has the power right now to be a successful feature film.

As-is, the joke and premise die off around page 20 and are never regained. How many historical references can you make in one script? And how many jokes can you make about them? Apparently, the answer is hundreds of them. Only a handful that are either a.) funny or b.) relevant and relate-able to today's audience. You are just not going to get big laughs by making jokes about Washington being a girl, or anything else like that. You're just going to get crickets...and that's exactly what I felt like I was hearing as I finished the script last night.

The movie/concept needs to be taken back to formula, honestly. It needs to be re-made and re-written as an action/adventure/comedy along the lines of "National Treasure." Right now it reads more like a sequel to "Your Highness."

Many of the references to historical events need to be trimmed down (yes, I guess you could say "dumbed down"), much of the humor needs to be completely removed, and the overall tone and atmosphere needs to be updated and made more 'adult-like.' Again, this almost reads like a stoner comedy for teenagers, except instead of drug references we have historical references. Instead of 20-something characters that college kids can relate to we have 40-50 year old men in pantaloons.

Again, the concept is good...the execution, however, needs much improvement.

The idea is very original, but I could not understand this kind of comedy. I think the script is a bit slow, so it did not seem so funny. The protagonist then it seems a bit the inspector Gadget and a bit Jason Bourne ... seventy years old.

This is a very good premise that would do well as a tv movie, but it needs to be more mature (I dont think that german hessians were giving each other teddy bears).

All I can say is fair to this whole thing....

First off, I thought some of the scene were out loud funny as I was reading it. And coming from me, that means a lot, especially since I'm one bitter, angry and souless dude. I'd love to see the entire cast of Childrens Hospital put this up as an eight episode story arch with Dr. Owen Maestro trapped in an elevator, with a group of sick kids during the Fourth of July weekend, and telling them this story about BF. That would be really cool, but I'm sure it would never ever happen, because those guys on that Adult Swim show are probably total dicks, but funny dicks.

My advice for the script: give Ben a sexy cyborg French maid named "Gi Gi" which was a gift created by Pierre-Simon Laplace, Georges-Louis Le Sage, and Alexander Cummings (designer of the flush toilet).