Cool Cat Saves the Kids

Cool Cat Saves the Kids

On the contrary, Barney the Dinosaur is cooler than Cool Cat!

Genre:	Kids Anti-bullying
Directed by:	Derek Savage
Produced by:	Derek Savage
Written by:	Derek Savage
Based on:	Cool Cat series by Derek Savage
Starring:	Vivica A. Fox Erik Estrada Derek Savage Jason Johnson
Distributed by:	Cool Cat Productions (later titled Derek Savage Productions)
Release date:	February 1, 2015 (original) June 2018 (Kids Superhero)
Runtime:	75 Minutes (original) 88 Minutes (Kids Superhero)
Country:	United States
Language:	English
Franchise:	Cool Cat
Prequel:	Cool Cat Finds a Gun
Sequel:	Cool Cat: Kids Superhero

Cool Cat Saves the Kids is a 2015 children's anti-bullying movie written and directed by Derek Savage, based on his children’s book series titled Cool Cat, and is the fourth film in the series, this being the first feature-length one. It serves as both a standalone sequel and a reboot. The film became infamous for its lack of quality due to its low budget and is often grouped along with other notoriously panned films, such as The Room and Birdemic: Shock and Terror. Since its release, it has been grouped with some of the worst kids' films of all time. However, it has also gained a cult following.

It was re-cut later in 2015 in response to a review by Adam Johnston on his YouTube channel YourMovieSucksDOTorg and was re-released again in 2018 as Cool Cat: Kids Superhero with several alterations, specifically the addition of new scenes, including an alternate opening, and the correction of several mistakes from the original cut. However, the filler scenes remained, some of the recorded dialogue wasn't properly dubbed, all of the newly shot scenes were pointless, and overall the bare minimum effort was put in to make the film more watchable.

Plot

A bright orange cat named Cool Cat is "the coolest cat in the world", and a blonde boy named Butch hates him for it. When Butch tries to bully Cool Cat and his army of friends, Cool Cat must stick up for himself and stop Butch.

Why It's Not Cooler than Barney the Dinosaur

The plot is notably inconsistent and confusing, with minimal continuity, making some scenes, like the "gun safety" scene, feel particularly out of place. This disjointedness is due to the movie being an awkward amalgamation of three different short films (refer to the "Trivia" section below).
- The film would have benefited from omitting the scenes from the Hollywood short and creating new ones to address the inconsistencies in the remaining plot.
Misleading title: Contrary to the film's claim that Cool Cat "saves the kids," he actually doesn't save anyone.
The characters come across as unlikable, irritating, and poorly developed, exhibiting one-dimensional traits that make them seem more like caricatures than real people.
- Cool Cat, as a character, is portrayed as creepy, annoying, immature, idiotic, irresponsible, and hypocritical. He is intended to teach children how to handle bullies, yet he fails to embody the traits necessary for such a role. For instance, he weeps when Butch demolishes his sandcastle, and despite advising on the importance of looking both ways before crossing the street, he dashes across without heed just moments later. He looks like a pedophile in a costume to an extent.
  - In a particular scene, he receives a hateful email from Butch while browsing the internet. Rather than ignoring, deleting, or blocking Butch's email, Cool Cat responds to it, which is an ill-advised action when dealing with a cyberbully. This response only serves to intensify Butch's animosity.
  - Although he is meant to be the hero, there are moments in the film where his behavior is more akin to that of a bully:
    - Instead of offering to mentor Butch and assist him with any issues he may have, as he did with the boys who were considered Butch's "allies," he persistently belittles him by stating that he has no friends.
    - Instead of helping Butch change his behavior, he and his friends ridicule him.
    - He and Maria display no sympathy or concern for Butch whatsoever. As the wind carries paint from a spray can into his eyes, they both declare that he deserves it, an attitude that is exceptionally cruel.
- Maria has no personality and is only there to be Cool Cat's friend and to take advice from him.
- Butch the Bully is portrayed as a flat, unsympathetic, and one-dimensional antagonist. He frequently declares his love for bullying and reminds others of his role as a bully in nearly every scene, despite it being glaringly obvious. He fits the mold of a typical bully, lacking any character development or redemption arc. The film also fails to explore any underlying reasons or history behind Butch's behavior, such as low self-esteem, a history of being bullied, or troubles at home, which are often cited as factors influencing such behavior. Instead, he appears to be a bully merely to fulfill the role of the villain in the story.
  - In the infamous "gun safety" scene, Butch finds a gun and decides to bring it to school with him to extort kids out of their lunch money in a kids' movie by the way.
  - Butch is also portrayed as a fat slob in dirty clothes and is the only character who is overweight, which is outright fat-shaming.
While Cool Cat's design isn't too bad in particular, his costume looks unintentionally creepy during specific scenes or when viewed from certain angles. It also looks like a wolf or a fox rather than a feline most of the time. The most notable issue is that Cool Cat doesn't have eyelids when he sleeps, despite him having eyelids when Butch kicks his sandcastle.
- On the topic of the scene where Cool Cat is sleeping, it looks as if he is having a seizure since his eyes are wide open and he is tossing and turning in bed at the same time.
The camera work appears amateurish and careless, with the cameraman's shadow and reflection visible on the glass doors at times.
Terrible editing, with it being proven by how there are several scenes where mistakes are left in.
- For example, in the e-mail scene, Cool Cat visits the best Buddies website (which is basic product placement, considering Derek wrote the book) and then immediately goes to check his e-mail without a transition at all.
False and toxic advertising: Ben Daka, the production manager of the movie, heavily advertises the Cool Cat character as "Cool Cat is cooler than Barney the Dinosaur!", which is false since Barney has a more proper characterization and he teaches better life lessons to kids. Cool Cat on the other hand does not have a proper characterization, does not properly teach kids how to deal with bullies, and is also a hypocrite. Also, Cool Cat is far from being cooler than Barney because of these reasons.
The acting is particularly poor, notably Jason Johnson's portrayal of Cool Cat, Connor Dean's performance as Butch, and Derek Savage's own role as Daddy Derek.
- The exaggerated enthusiasm in Savage's acting comes across as if he's sarcastically ridiculing Cool Cat, especially when he exclaims, "Wow! $100?! That's a lot of money!"
- Erik Estrada's awkward delivery for some of his lines, particularly when he shouts, "Did you see that? That kid kicked sand in Cool Cat's face!" after Butch kicks Cool Cat's sandcastle, as well as when he infamously informs Vivica A. Fox about the presence of Cool Cat ("There he is!"), is hilariously bad.
  - On a similar note, Estrada seemed a bit tipsy during filming judging by his facial expression and line delivery, though Jason Johnson confirmed that this wasn't the case, indicating that Estrada knew how hokey the script was.
  - It also wastes the talents of both Vivica A. Fox (best known as Vernita Green (code name Copperhead) in the Kill Bill film series) and Erik Estrada, as well as Eric Roberts in a PSA.
Poor attempts at intentional comedy.
The police officer is portrayed by a well-known former porn star named Steve Crest, a casting decision that is both baffling and inappropriate, considering that this movie is targeted towards children. Porn stars will sometimes star in films rated NC-17, R, or very rarely PG-13, so having a porn star appear in a film targeted towards children makes no sense.
- Daddy Derek being married to Momma Cat also comes across as bestiality in a movie targeted towards children.
Rather a poor grasp of the source material, even though they're both made by the same guy.
- For example, in the original Cool Cat books, the titular character's father was a cat, but for some reason, he is a human in this movie similar to how the grandparents of the costumed characters are in the infamous Tomorrow’s Pioneers. Though to be fair, this is because the filmmakers only had enough money for one cat costume.
Horrendous and laughable soundtrack, with the songs being very dreadful and repetitive stock music.
Terrible sound direction.
As previously stated, the filmmakers had a budget that only allowed for one catsuit, which was used for both Cool Cat and Momma Cat. The limitation is particularly evident in the scene where Cool Cat and Momma Cat appear to be "in the same room." In that scene, as Cool Cat and Daddy Derek return from Hollywood, a column of tiles in the middle is conspicuously shorter than the others, indicating that the scenes were filmed separately and then combined.
Laughable, cringe-inducing, and nonsensical dialogue, such as "I just punked her!", "He better not be a bully because I don't like bullies", "Look at me! I'm surfing the web!", "Oh no, it's the police! We're in trouble! Oh, my mama's gonna whoop me!", "Kids loves [sic] Cool Cat!", and "Boy, it'll be fat time for me!"
The film also uses outdated slang that almost no one in the film's target audience would understand and had been seldom used since the late 1970s to the early 1980s, like the aforementioned "punked", as well as "groovy" and "exquisite".
Bad dubbing of dialogue, as if most of the actors were too close to the microphone.
Many scenes are pointless and do nothing to move the story forward and therefore serve as filler to pad out the running time, notably the scene with the Hollywood parade as well as a scene where Cool Cat does nothing but name cars from various famous movies, not to mention they came from the aforementioned Hollywood short.
- One scene feels like it was patched in just to show off Savage's Van Halen-signed guitar.
Some scenes are illogical.
- In a particular scene, Cool Cat is depicted driving a car, even though he is a child, a choice that even the actor portraying him, Jason Johnson, does not endorse.
- When Cool Cat identifies cars from well-known movies, he uses informal names rather than the correct ones, and he mentions vehicles that may not be familiar to children. For instance, he calls them the "Back to the Future car" and the "Ghostbusters car" instead of their actual names, the DeLorean and the ECTO-1.
- At a certain juncture, Butch is apprehended merely for pilfering candy from infants, an act deemed sufficiently egregious to warrant a news report.
The film contains a lot of downright harmful and wrong messages for children, such as:
- The statement "bullies have no friends" is illogical, as bullies often operate in groups and typically prey on individuals who have few friends. Moreover, difficulties in making friends can stem from shyness or other social challenges. Additionally, although loneliness may contribute to aggressive behavior, the film portrays it as the only reason behind a bully's actions.
- "It is acceptable to find humor in another's misfortune": Cool Cat and Maria are depicted laughing when Butch accidentally gets paint in his eyes.
- "You should read messages from strangers". This, however, was fixed in Kids Superhero. Plus, it gets reversed at the end of the film.
  - To make matters worse, in Kids Superhero, Cool Cat tells Maria not to open messages from strangers, but she can in this instance since he's there with her. When Maria suggests that the message could be about winning money in a contest, rather than warning her that it could be a scam designed to steal personal information, Cool Cat instead cheers about them going on a trip together, which gives the moral that "giving personal information to strangers is okay, if they're gonna give you something".
  - "Yelling at a bully will make them stop". However, if you show a bully that their actions affect you, they are likely to continue their harassment.
They restate everything at the end of the movie, which is also when they sort of send the right message.
There are times when Cool Cat violently shakes either his hand, his leg, or both for no apparent reason as if he is making inappropriate gestures.
- Johnson said he wanted to add "cat-like mannerisms" to the character.
- Maria can also be seen pretending she did not notice during the first time he did this.
Internal contradictions, such as Cool Cat saying that his hands are full even though they clearly aren't, and a little girl calling for help so she wouldn't be bullied, even though she is right next to a location titled "Bully's Diner".
Poor production values that make it more like a long PSA program rather than being a movie. That's direct-to-video for a reason.
Its re-release, Cool Cat: Kids Superhero, is worse, since it is just a re-skin of this movie but with even less relevant scenes and continuity and Momma Cat being voiced by Cynthia Rothrock, who doesn't want to be there.
- On that topic, Maria is much meaner than in the original cut to the point where she makes Butch look more likable by comparison.
Despite the film's intense negative reputation, it somehow still manages to spawn several more Cool Cat featurettes/short films, like Cool Cat's Crazy Dream (2019) and Cool Cat Fights Coronavirus (2021) for example, with each film receiving far worse reviews than the last, including this film and its re-release version, Cool Cat: Kids Superhero, hence showing how Derek Savage is blind to negative criticism of this film and the Cool Cat live-action franchise in general.

Redeeming Qualities

This film may teach kids a good lesson about what to do if you find a gun in the "gun safety" scene, despite said scene being pointless.
Making an anti-bullying educational film for kids is an interesting idea on paper, though unfortunately it was executed at its worst here.
¨DERR HE IS!¨
The subpar acting and poor production quality often result in unintended humor.

Videos

Reception and copyright controversy

After the film came out, several online critics bashed the movie for its poor acting, awful plot, and annoying main character. The two most notable such reviews were by I Hate Everything (as part of his "The Search for the Worst" series) and YourMovieSucksDOTorg. Savage initially took his criticism in stride, but a few weeks after IHE's video was uploaded, Derek Savage filed copyright claims against IHE for alleged "copyright infringement", even though said the video was a review, which is protected by fair use.

Not long after, Derek Savage then uploaded a video in which he tried to explain the difference between copyright infringement and fair use, which was criticized immensely. In response, YMS uploaded a video refuting Savage's claims.

On November 28th of that year, IHE uploaded a video detailing the events that had transpired between him and Savage since his last video. According to IHE, Savage had even impersonated attorneys from a law firm in an attempt to manipulate him into removing several videos from his channel.

The reviews made by IHE and YMS respectively have since been re-uploaded by others, notably Bobsheaux and Josiah Clarke. Corey's review was uploaded after the controversy.

On IMDb, the film has a 3.5/10, while its re-release version, Cool Cat: Kids Superhero, has a 2.6/10.

Trivia

This movie is made of three 22-minute short films: Cool Cat Stops Bullying, released in 2012, Cool Cat in the Hollywood Christmas Parade, also from 2012, and Cool Cat Finds a Gun, released in 2013, with new material to tie them together. This could explain the inconsistency of the movie's plot. Savage admits in this video that he didn't plan this to be a feature-length film.
TheOdd1sOut made a whole video centered on this and Derek Savage, but it got removed from YouTube.

External links

Cool Cat Saves The Kids at the Internet Movie Database

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