Joe’s Apartment really bugs me. It’s gross. It’s nasty. It’s, for God’s sake, a movie about talking cockroaches. It is easily the most disgusting movie I have ever seen that didn’t involve blood and gore. But what bugs me about it is that it is really, really funny.
The story involves a small town schmuk, played by a very talented young actor named Jerry O’Connell, who moves to the big city and winds up living in the nastiest apartment in the entire city. That’s ok with Joe, he’s a pretty big slob himself, such a slob in fact that the roaches living in the apartment, some twenty thousand of them, decide to let him in on the roach communities little secret…they’re intelligent and they can talk. Then things get more complicated for Joe when the owner of the rent-controlled building begins using strong-arm tactics to empty the building of its tenants so he can sell it. Oh, and Joe falls in love which tickles the roaches since they’re romantics at heart (do roaches even have hearts?).
The puns are fast paced and atrocious, but good enough in a horrid sort of way to make you smile despite yourself. The music is first rate, in fact, this almost qualifies as a musical even though the roaches do all the singing. The acting, even that done by the roaches, is done in a ham handed sort of way, deliberately so, that adds instead of detracts from the movie’s humor.
Basically, if you gross out easily or have no tolerance for low humor you should definitely give this movie a pass. But if you tend to appreciate a certain amount of low humor, have teenage kids you want to entertain (though I should warn you the language in the movie is a bit strong), or want a movie you can watch with some friends some beer and some popcorn (check it for roaches first though) you’d probably enjoy this film.
Average Grade: C+
