Killer Bean Forever (2009) - First Impressions

First of all, I would like to premise this review by stating that it was not my idea to watch this film, and were it up to me, I never would have wanted to. But now that I have, I must say, it was quite a journey.

Killer Bean Forever (2009) was produced entirely by one man, Jeff Lew. What was originally produced as a means to teach himself animation ultimately turned into a full fledged feature film.

The concept of a… thriller(?) film featuring beans definitely sounds like the sort of thing I would do to practice, and show others to make laugh. I must commend Lew for the dedication towards making this movie. I’m putting my bets on the fact that this was created to show off what he is capable of doing. The beans were definitely the worst thing to look at for the entirety of the movie. The way they had butt cracks, their undilated pupils, and just the way their mouth functions really had me feeling some kind of way. (Think hot and bothered, but minus the hot, and double the bothered). But in all honesty, the rest of the movie visually… was not bad. I was especially impressed by the usage of camerawork and rack focus. In this way Lew knows a thing or two about framing and creating visually interesting shots. While the beans were all flat and dull in appearance, there was a lot of detail in other props, like the Killer Bean’s golden hand guns, and the reflections in the beans’ eyes. The landscape was not so bad either- as far as a cityscape, it’s pretty underwhelming. But, given the tone of the film, the amount of effort put into the backgrounds was impressive.

Onto the story itself- the main character is 100% a Mary Sue. Every conflict that could have held him back was quickly and easily resolved when he just shoots everyone dead. I’m not sure what it was in particular- the fact that I was looking at beans, or the alcohol that I’ve been drinking coursing through my body- but somehow I was still invested enough to watch through the end without getting bored. There were also some iconic one liners in this film that gave me the strength to go onwards.

This movie takes troupes from a billion other movies made and takes a comedic spin on it that makes it so bad that it’s good. Don’t count on me to ever rewatch it though. (However, if you’re interested, it’s uploaded in 4K on Youtube).