Enjoyable for what it is

You wouldn’t expect much from a movie like “Richie Rich” and yet I was pleasantly surprised in rewatching it. While it’s nothing to write home about, there’s humor and a fine spirit to it and it finds Macaulay Culkin back in familiar territory of family friendly comedies where the family home is at stake.


He plays the title role here, the richest kid in the world who lives in a lavish mansion with eccentric parents running what seems like a conglomerate of Rich-centered products. Richie has everything a kid could possibly want from anyone looking on from the outside though what he really craves are friends his own age.


Not that the mansion is loaded with interesting supporting characters. There’s Cadbury (Jonathan Hyde), the droll Butler who works a bit like John Gielgud in “Arthur”, the absent-minded Professor Keenbeam (Michael McShane), who works in the family basement lab on all sorts of odd inventions, plus there’s no shortage of celebrity tutors and trainers to help Richie be all he can be.


But Richie wants friends and so doing a bit of philanthropic work, he sees some kids playing baseball in a poor neighborhood and wants to join. They bet him a “tener” he can’t even hit a baseball, and, never having met children who don’t seem like Trump pod-people, he believes they mean $10,000.


In time they see that Richie is deep down just a kid like them and in them Richie finds invaluable friends to help with villain Laurence Van Dough (played with oily menace by John Larroquette). He’s sick of the Rich parents and their wholesome, generous empire and so he sabotages their plane, leaving them stranded and Richie to save the company from his lecherous clutches.


But in addition to adventure, there is also play, and director Donald Petrie and the whole production team have done a nice job creating a mansion that could double as a paradise for any kid. There’s a rollercoaster in the backyard, a catapult, a bedroom basketball court, and of course a room dedicated to a personal McDonalds.


For Culkin, he wasn't the cute little kid anymore but he still nicely plays the good-hearted, mischievous scamp. Also charming are the side characters- especially the parents (Edward Herrman, Christine Ebersole). There is a bit of nuance here as they are not neglectful, workaholic, and money driven but magnanimous, kindly people. Jonathan Hyde’s Butler is also fairly amusing, even if he doesn’t have Gielgud’s witty lines.


The jokes are of the fart and childish variety but every once in a while there’s a good one about Queen Elizabeth or Michael Jackson for adults. The film moves well but with a 90 minute run time where the last half hour is devoted solely to action, there, of course, isn’t much to it. Still, good humor and a cheery disposition take it farther than you’d expect.