Overrated

Don't Believe the Hype

A Brilliant Conflict

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

*MINOR SPOILER ALERT* This might not be up to the usual "Herbie" standard, but 4.8 is just ridiculous when you compare it to all the other kinds of movies rated on the IMDb. It's still about infinitely better than the usual no-budget, no-production-value, no-story, no-dialog, no-nothing movie that gets that low a rating here. A more fair rating would be about 6 or so. The cast is largely name-brand and Harvey Korman even has moments that remind you of Joe Flynn in the earlier Disney/Buena Vista live-action movies which preceded this one.I especially appreciated the location shooting, not only in Mexico but in Columbia and most especially Panama, where we get to see Herbie in the Pedro Miguel locks of the Panama Canal, cruising past Panama Viejo, and whizzing down the Fort Amador causeway with Panama City in the background, and over the Thatcher Ferry Bridge (known to everybody but Zonians rather grandiloquently as "The Bridge of the Americas") with the old Rodman Naval Station off in the distance. It was fun.

Jim Douglas has long retired and has left his car to Pete Staniczek as long as he collects it from South America. So Pete and engineer Davy Johns collect the car to enter it into a race, but they first have to contend with little pickpocket Paco. Despite the look of the car, they take it on the cruise ship with them when they leave – not knowing that Paco has sneaked onboard as well to escape the wrath of one of his victims who are part of a gang planning to steal Aztec gold.This was supposedly the final entry in the series but I suppose that the new 2005 film means that it is number 4 of 5 (so far). The characters and locations have all changed but essentially the formula is still the same – physical comedy from Herbie, romance from the driver, a crime subplot although no race as such. In this regard it doesn't do anything particularly special or go anywhere other than you expect it to, but it is inoffensive and not annoying or boring. The comedy is so-so, with plenty of Herbie action for kids (apparently they went through over 20 cars making this) and acceptable humour for adults.The cast are mixed – in some regards they carry the movie but in others they are terrible. The lead cast are mostly poor. Burns shows how enjoyable Jones was because he is totally lacking in charisma or screen presence. Smith does his best to impersonate the usual engineer sidekick (Knotts) by mugging and pulling faces but it never gets past the stage of impersonation to become his own work. Davalos is terribly dull, although her wooden, uninspired delivery does quite compliment Burns. Garay (the third, would you believe) is OK but if you hate "cute kids" in movies then you'll hate his squeaky little performance; however I suppose it is quite cool that the car gets to act opposite an orphan – very like Chaplin. Thank goodness for the support cast then, because they do a lot of the work that the lead actors fail to do; not saying that they are that good but at least they are lively and interesting. Korman overacts with little material to work with but he is very funny at times. Leachman is a lot more by-the-numbers and not as interesting. The criminal gang don't have much to do but the faces will be interesting for adults – Jaeckel and Rocco for example.Overall, this is a fairly obvious entry in the series but it is still enjoyable. The overuse of the kid will put many adults off because it brings out some horrible, cloying sentiment but mostly the film is lively and quite enjoyable. Children will enjoy it and adults will be able to watch it without feeling bored.

I have another trivia for this title: as the kid never mention the name of Herbie on the movie and he calls Herbie "ocho", it is because ocho means eight in Spanish which is the result of Herbie's number (53) added (5+3=8)...:) that's my theory I don't know if it's true but it has sense...or what do you think??, i figured it out because my mother language is Spanish and my second is English, i didn't figure out when i was a kid because i didn't speak English at the time, i saw the movie like a month ago and it kept me thinking about this. By the way i bought some Herbie's movies in DVD and the quality is great, thanks Disney for bringing back the classics of my childhood.

The fourth Herbie took a twist of fate. No racing, no Dean Jones, and no quality movie. I thought there should have been a story where Douglas and Applegate continue on their racing quest to a country like Germany or Italy. These writers probably thought that the "racing" idea was too tiring to be used anymore. I did read on some site that Dean Jones did read the actual script for the "Bananas" movie. He said no because of the story's new twist itself. I can't blame him for that. Even if he was in that storyline, the movie might have been a bit better but still the worse. If the movie was about racing again, then Jones returns but probably not as good as Monte Carlo. Instead, new story with new characters that made no sense. Therefore, this is where the movie went wrong. This is also where the movie had the twist of fate.