Herbie: Fully Loaded

Released in 1968, Disney’s original ‘Love Bug’ movie was a huge success that went on to spawn a spate of sequels and even a TV show. Thirty seven years on, very little has changed: this modern mutation (also by Disney) joins the same conventional dots as the original and follows a similar child-friendly premise. Herbie, for the uninitiated, is a ‘classic’ VW Beetle with a mind of its own. In true underdog style, the free-thinking, four-fendered motor is rescued from the scrapyard by the daughter of a race team manager, tuned up and, in the final reel, entered into the national Nascar championship race meeting where… No sense in divulging the predictable outcome, suffice it to say that the film mines every cliché in the book and then some. As a one-time Herbie fan, I must admit feeling a tinge of nostalgia on seeing the little fella again. What I didn’t expect was the resounding ‘yes’ from the kids in the audience who clearly loved the film’s boisterous slapstick humour and generally easy-going nature. A bit of a hit, then.