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It has probably been seventeen years since the last time I watched The Big Adventure. I had simply forgotten how much fun the movie was. It is silly, almost pointless, in terms of the usual yardsticks by which movies are measured, but in terms of simply nailing the relationship between a boy and his bike the flick is all there!
Pewee's genre is that of a genre painting, scenes from everyday life, every day in the life of a young boy growing up in the fifties. It is slapstick to be certain and it is very much a parody but, within all truly great parodies there lies the basis of truth. When Pee Wee awakes from his dream in which he wins the Tour De France on his "Best Bike in The Whole World" he is merely living the fantasy life of a youngster from an earlier simpler time. His Rube Goldberg house, complete with breakfast machine, is a logical extension of every "string thing" that young boys of the fifties so ardently fashioned, and which, in their imaginations, accomplished so very much.
The "Best Bike in the Whole Wide World" is a parody of the style of bike we rode, but it is not off by much. Every Schwinn had a tank between the top bars of the frame and they even had a button operated battery powered horn. Which, when new, made a blatting honk, but which also quickly died down to a clunk-ith click shortly before the batteries self destructed (and corroded everything inside the tank so that the horn never worked again. But somehow the chrome and thick red paint managed to outlast even the most severe winters of neglect and aside from drenching the chain in used crank case oil, the bikes just ran and ran and ran, just like Pee Wee's.
The movie is a farcical romp through the images of a boy's mind and as such it is fun and slightly strange. The movie is strongly entertaining and easy to identify with if you are from the era of big tires, chrome and handle bar grip streamers. I am not certain if it is a continuity error, or if the best bike in the whole word was stripped down for his tour race, but the bike Pee Wee used to win the tour is a substantially lightened version of that Best Bike!
Aside from that the production values are good, the parody better and the laughs are innocent.
Tim Burton does his usual job of lighting up our fun flaws and pokes away at our stereotypes. but in the last 20 minutes or so the movie declines in it's intensity. Aside from that the movie is great fun for anybody who loves their bike. Enjoy it!
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