My Review of Dunston Checks In · 9:49pm Aug 16th, 2022

Rating Scale:

12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; it is something I might watch again
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made

Greetings, my friends! This is Mr. J back with another movie review for today! This afternoon, I will be reviewing a 1996 adventure/comedy film entitled: Dunston Checks In! This is another one of my beloved childhood comedy movies of all time, and I surprisingly haven’t seen it since I was a kid. I did remember enjoying it and re-watching it so many times since I really enjoyed the comedic story it presented. Since it has been so long, I wanted to re-watch it again for the first time as an adult to see if it is as good as I remember. Last night, I took the opportunity to do so, and it is still a wonderful piece of art which not many people talk about at all. In fact, I’m not even sure if anybody, in this day and age, even knows that this film exists.

This movie is about a manager trying to make his hotel a much more enjoyable place for the guests while trying to look after his two rambunctious sons who always cause trouble within the Majestic Hotel. One of his sons stumbles upon a sneaky orangutan; seeing he has an abusive criminal owner, Kyle befriends him and tries to protect Dunston from those who wish to harm him.

As I have looked back at this movie as an adult, I understand what the filmmakers and writers were going for and the message it was conveying. Realizing that family is more important or just as important as caring for your hotel guests was something they executed well in this movie. Additionally, being with those who actually love you and care for you was something that was flawlessly well-portrayed as we see the chemistry between Dunston and Kyle.

Whoever trained Sam the Orangutan did a fantastic job! Sam was definitely the star of this film, and he conveyed emotions that were quite subtle yet understandable. Not to mention that every scene he was in was so hilarious!

Jason Alexander, Eric Lloyd, Rupert Everett, and the late Glenn Shadix stood out the most to me for their exceptional acting and flawless characterizations. Glenn Shadix’s character, Lionel Spalding, was the funniest character in the movie…mostly because he was a punching bag through it all. I laughed every time people kept giving him the Will Smith treatment. 😂

Also, I was actually surprised to hear the dirty adult jokes in the movie. They went over my head as a kid, but after re-watching them last night, I was shaking my head after understanding what they meant. Gosh, it just brings me back to the old days.

There are some minor flaws I want to point out. Some elements of the plot didn’t make much sense to me, and a couple of Everett’s lines (as Lord Rutledge) were hard to comprehend. To address the former issue, for example, why are people so paranoid of a single orangutan? How come they are terrified of a species that are actually known to be less aggressive than other primates? Are they stupid, or do they not know anything about orangutans? To address the latter issue, one of Rutledge’s lines sounded so slurred it was hard to make out what he was saying. The subtitles said, “God, you blithering idiot!”, yet it didn’t even sound like he said that. The poor enunciation made it unintentionally funny than it should have.

Overall, this is still an enjoyable movie. It is highly underrated, has great acting, excellent comedy, a well-written story, and overall fun entertainment. I give this a solid 9/10! Check it out if you haven’t already! I highly recommend it.

Peace!