Brats rule

Film review: Yaya & Angelina: The Spoiled Brat Movie

MANILA, Philippines - The current GMA Films/APT release is the Michael Tuviera-directed Yaya & Angelina: The Spoiled Brat Movie. An offshoot of the highly popular recurring skit on Bubble Gang — where Ogie Alcasid takes on the character of spoiled seven-year-old girl/brat Angelina, and Michael V (Bitoy) plays her persecuted yaya; the movie takes on the heady task of expanding and sustaining what has been five-minute TV vignettes, and turning it into a full-length movie. This is not as simple as it sounds, even Mike Myers and Sacha Baron Cohen have attempted this and fallen flat on their faces — taking characters they’ve invented for their stand-up routines, and using them for film projects.

The popularity of the Angelina and Yaya TV skits has a lot to do with the outrageousness of the reactions to the real life situations, and the repeated use of catchwords, gestures and phrases — the “whatever” and “loser” exclamations punctuated by hand signals. Obviously, this cannot carry a feature film, so one challenge was whether to create an organic story and plotline, or turn the film into a collage of vignettes. A second consideration stems from the fact that Bubble Gang is a late night show, and most kids would be asleep by the time the show airs.

So what we have is a curious hybrid, a family movie meant to be enjoyed by both children, and adults in a silly mood; and a movie that comes in two parts. The first part is a succession of fast-paced and gleeful situations and vignettes, with Angelina as our “tour guide” (she even speaks directly to the camera) — bringing us her family (Aiko Melendez and Jomari Yllana in a cute bit of casting), the search for a yaya (after the first one, and watch out for this cameo, ends up hospitalized), her adventures with Yaya Rosalinda and the relationship that somehow grows, and her exploits in school. These set pieces really work, and the audience I was watching with were putty in the hands of the visual gags, ridiculous scenarios and dialogue. On this count, I especially liked the visual routine of Angelina coming out of the shower, the neat reversal of roles when we discover who is the school crush of Angelina, and the “aruwana” scene.

Hinted at from the onset is the visit of a female British dignitary — the Duchess of Wellington, and when the second part of the film is devoted to Angelina and Yaya getting enmeshed in a terrorist plot (Iza Calzado purposely playing it over the top as head villainess) to assassinate the Duchess, the exposition of this portion takes its sweet time, and judging from the audience reaction, can best be remembered for the multiple characters Bitoy takes on (in Eddie Murphy style). While still admirable, this portion doesn’t have the laughs coming in rapid fire succession as in the first part of the film. And I would have liked tighter editing for this second act.

Coming on the heels of KimmyDora, and the humor filled portrayal by Vilma Santos in the first part of In My Life, I liked noticing how Yaya & Angelina is the third part of the strong resurgence of mainstream comedy in our film industry. Tuviera showed his feel for this kind of genre in last year’s Nieves episode of Shake Rattle & Roll, so it’s nice to see him again stretching beyond the horror genre he first established his name with. This gets my full “bag of popcorn” marks for laughs and mirth, and it’s good to see projects like this being fulfilled, as it couldn’t happen to two nicer guys in the industry — Ogie and Michael V.