The Road to Wellville

source: The Road to Wellville

What the crap were they thinking?!?! I just can't believe ANYONE in their right mind would want to make this movie! The story is a combination of true history and fictionalized drivel. Yes, there really was a health clinic in Michigan that really prescribed a STRICT vegetarian diet, repeated enemas and was dedicated to repressing sexual urges. BUT, to make an entire movie about this AND to try to make it a comedy??? The movie is VERY visceral and goes way over the top in showing and describing human and animal waste. Wow. It looks like movie goers could have saved money--instead of paying to see this movie, they could have gone to a sewage treatment plant or local dairy farm for a tour---or perhaps just stared into a used toilet for 118 minutes! The movie is painfully unfunny and most of the characters are awful--particularly Dana Carvey's disgusting character.

A thoroughly appalling "comedy" detailing the wacky misadventures at an early 20th century health farm run by bizarre cereal magnate Dr. John Kellogg. Purportedly based on real events, one is hard-pressed to find much to laugh about in this over-long and criminally unfunny film. Anthony Hopkins, sporting buck teeth, has been drafted to play the nutty Kellogg. The events at the health farm largely unfold through the eyes of newly converted health maven Bridget Fonda and her less enthused husband Matthew Broderick, who is dragged along to have his system cleared of impurities. It is open for debate how much on screen is indeed factual, but it is certainly not open for debate how such a debacle could have been conceived with the talent involved. Director Alan Parker is responsible for some of our best dramas, including Midnight Express and Mississippi Burning. The cast is stocked with familiar faces, who have had far better days elsewhere. The humor is almost completely one-sided in scatological references and bodily functions - if you think the idea of someone getting a yogurt enema is the height of hilarity, then this is definitely the film for you. The film is also awash in gratuitous nudity, but no amount of eye candy (and much of it would not qualify for that description) can distract from the film's glaring shortcomings. Hopkins throws himself into the role of Kellogg, but it is little more than a cartoon character. Fonda alternates between nagging and dishrag in a dreadfully uninteresting role. Broderick fares best from the cast, largely because he is playing the only semi-developed character and the only one remotely normal or sympathetic. It is also a pleasant surprise how enticing he looks when naked - that close-up on the vibrating platform was a real eye-opener. John Cusack is on hand, but why is anyone's guess. His subplot - playing a nephew of one of Kellogg's patients involved in a shady scheme - goes no where and takes up too much screen time. Ditto, Dana Carvey as Kellogg's deranged son. Both subplots could have been completely excised from the film without anyone noticing and making the proceedings blessedly shorter. Camryn Manheim is light years beyond obnoxious as Fonda's confidante at the health farm. Truly there is literally nothing that works in this film. There is nary a chuckle to be found in its morass of jokes on poop, enemas, flatulence and body fluids. At the end, the question lingers as to how so many talented people ended up in this mess?

Battle Creek, Michigan is hometown to me and several generations of my family. So, maybe I appreciated 'The Road to Wellville' more than most. After all, anyone living in Battle Creek either works for the Kellogg Company or is close to someone who does. Kellogg's and Post cereal companies have affected nearly every level of Battle Creek's evolution for 100 years or more. The great cereal boom of the early 1900s is still talked about today. And tales of the legendary Dr. Harvey Kellogg (artfully played by Anthony Hopkins), Seventh Day Adventists, and the famous (or infamous) Battle Creek 'San' are fondly retold by some of the town's elder residents. The health regimens practiced at the B.C. Sanitarium led to a host of other health-related businesses in Battle Creek which made everything from dubious exercise equipment to nearly tasteless all-veggie soybean burgers. This film is a lively, tongue-in-cheek rendition of the intriguing story about an era when entrepreneurship in the U.S. was at its peak. The cast, featuring Matthew Broderick, John Cusack, Bridget Fonda and Dana Carvey, is excellent and the humor as wacky as it gets. Bon appetit!

I judge the worth of a movie by how many times I want to watch it and I never seem to get tired of this one. An outstanding cast coupled with a delightful mix of period and real history add to the enjoyment. In addition, the director has an excellent sense of timing, the movie is well costumed and the music often lends itself well to comic moments. Of course, an overwhelming element of sex adds to its irreverent charm. The leads read(pardon the cliché)like a who's who of fine acting. Anthony Hopkins, John Cusack, Mathew Broderick, Dana Carvey and Bridgette Fonda head an excellent cast of character actors. If you look closely, you might recognize one of the "cookoo cookoo" Pigeon sisters from the original Odd Couple playing John Cusack's aunt. If you have any more doubts just remember the words of Nurse Graves " An erection is a flagpole on your grave".

When I saw this movie years ago in the theater, I hated it. I just watched it again (2002) and loved it. It has several laugh out loud jokes and is a running smirk movie. If you've ever had any experience with alternative meds - you'll love it to. It is so self effacing it is wonderful. Don't expect The Godfather cinema type and you won't be disappointed. It is wonderful to see Hopkins & Broderick playing it straight. Kudos.

I'm usually one to give movies a chance, and I can get into raunchy movies (a la Monty Python). However, the repetitive scatological references in this movie seem unnecessary, and boring. I left the theater about 45 minutes through.

Despite some good production values and the performance of Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Kellogg, I thought that "The Road to Wellville" was a major embarrassment. As it has been proved more than a few times, just because there's a strong cast doesn't mean that the movie will be a success. I guess the mention of enemas as a punchline in almost every other joke in the movie made it such a low-grade, sophomoric comedy. Perhaps it should have been a low-budget, college campus comedy instead of an expensive, health farm comedy. "The Road to Wellville" was one of the worst films in director Alan Parker's career.

RTW is by all means a very funny movie. Sure, one can find it disgusting in some details, but it is nothing more than a point of view. On the formal side, you cannot say much against it: it has an excellent cast, superb costumes and buildings, it almost captured this long gone time. And, by the way, these stupid gadgets and therapies, they were real, they didn´t invent anything. OK, the story could be a little bit straighter, but thats all. Otherwise, RTW is holding a mirror for the health and fitness obsession of our times and one should be able to laugh about that too. All in all a good one. I´m sorry for those, who cannot like it because of their prudery, rest of you just try to watch a little bit more open - minded.

I have rarely seen such a feast of bad-taste tosh in my life. One or two 'jokes' about bowel movements could be funny....two could be amusing.....but this film, dedicated to that end of the alimentary canal is about as much fun to watch as it is to receive the endless enemas it delights in bringing to our close attention. Parker's characters are shallow and boring. Hopkins plays a one-dimensional puritanical sadist. He abused his adopted son, likes to humiliate his patients, is impotent and does things to his own backside with devices. Fantastic. This character could have been generated by computer. What happened to Parker's creativity? The story simply does not exist. There is no relation at all between the various threads and they have no influence on the main storyline because it is either totally lacking or so weak as to be invisible. However I fear the most important criticism I have of this sorry waste of money is that it is simply NOT AT ALL FUNNY. During the entire, dragging, boring debacle, there were perhaps two occasions when it was worth a slight smile. Does Parker really think it is necessary to show a man in a shower with filthy underpants and then give us a close-up of the brown-black waste water emanating from them? Is it funny for a man to have an erection because of electrical charges applied to his feet? (Incidently this joke was played for several minutes and several scenes in the film.) Parker directed with a total lack of taste and finesse. I would like to take a copy of this lame disaster, and just as Mr. Parker wasted a couple of precious hours of my life showing me his sad anal fixation fantasies, procure a jar of Vaseline and then introduce him to new ways of 'enjoying film'. This film should have stayed where it belonged - on the cutting room floor. Parker - hang your head in shame, Sir!