Let's imagine you're a Canadian filmmaker with a sound 6.5 million dollar budget. Not enough for a big genre piece but enough for a solid 90 minute comedy or drama, provided you don't blow your budget on star power. What do you do? If you answered "hire Eugene Levy for a secondary role and Hagrid from Harry Potter to voice the giant dead-eyed teddy bear," you are Wilson Coneybeare, the Writer/Producer/Director of this straight-to-DVD abomination. While hailed as "heart-warming" and scoring "five doves" on ChristianCinema.com, there is nothing heartwarming about this film. Featuring a bear costume that makes the Country Bears look realistic and a plot we've seen done better several times already, it's unclear what the filmmakers thought Gooby would bring to the table. Aside from, you know, a host of double entendre that was either the world's biggest oversight or a deliberate attempt to sneak incredibly creepy subtext by the dove guys we mentioned earlier.The film opens by introducing us to Willy, who monologues for a bit to establish his role as the main character and introduce his negligent power-career parents. We're treated to about a second of a CGI character that probably cost thousands of dollars just to model that we'll never see again before learning that Willy's parents are moving and introduced to Gooby, a teddy bear. After a few days being miserable in his new environment, Willy starts to notice something is about. He tracks it to the Friendship Shed, where he discovers that Gooby has come to life mutated into a dead-eyed all-devouring abomination which, apparently, is wearing a scarf suspiciously similar to Tom Baker's. From here, we're just going through the motions as we simultaneously follow the list of "things to do when ripping off Calvin and Hobbes" and "my imaginary friend is real and an adult is trying to expose it." Though that's not to say it doesn't do anything original, they just tend to be horrible things with no rational reason to be in the movie. The film ends with Gooby luring Willy to a derelict house and leaving him dangling over a pit, ostensibly so his father can save him and rekindle their relationship.This movie is bizarre. It doesn't come off as heartwarming, it's creepy. The bear suit is horrifying, the plot is from a handbook on child endangerment, and the message is "if your parents ignore you, don't make friends, just retreat into your imagination and put yourself in peril to get attention." And let's not forget that only black character in the film is swiftly replaced by Eugene Levy.

Gooby Gooby Gooby. The word continues to rattle around in my brain, a lingering remnant of the mental trauma endured last night while watching this movie. Now, don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching giant teddy bears with immobile faces fart as much as the next guy, but this one just wasn't doing it for me. Did I learn anything? Was I supposed to? I don't know. What I do know is that my life is now forever tainted, and I can only pray that when I close my eyes at night, I will not be met with visions of Gooby devouring cold hot dogs, or Eugene Levy sporting a Wolverine hair cut, or...well, just about anything from this movie.

Kids film made by adults who don't understand kids films. Its the story of a kid who moves to a new home with his family. When he complains he'll hate it his mother said that Gooby, a stuffed bear will help him. The kid reminds his mom that he is 11 and that he hasn't played with Gooby in years. The kid runs into trouble and Gooby does help him. Its way too creepy for words.Aside from the poor script the real problem here is Gooby. Its a man in a suit with an mask for a face. Robbie Coltrane who provides the voice is clearly doing a voice over. Its horrible. Its embarrassing. Actually Gooby looks like the sort of suit that little kids would run screaming from if he showed up at a party. This would have been great had it been a horror film but as a feel good kids film its all wrong.This is a lousy movie and should be avoided.

This is a very odd movie, from beginning to end. From the start, there is a very big disconnect between the voice & the character of Gooby. With Gooby being a man in a suit, how were they unable to get Robbie Coltrane to just climb into the suit? When the voice doesn't match the face, things can only go downhill from there. Matthew Knight happens to be a talented young actor, as the boy who owns Gooby, but I think his talents are wasted in this role.Gooby is supposed to be the star, and I could not look past the suit to see the character he was portraying - partly because of the way his eyes are painted on in-expressively. The film has a small amount of quirkiness, notably the fact that Gooby retains his "cleaning instructions" tag sewn into his side, but other than that, there's really nothing to recommend. I think kids and adults will be more freaked out by this large stuffed creature than happy to see him.