Good Burger (1997)
★★★ — Good Burger (1997)
Here's the thing about Good Burger: it makes complete sense as a piece of entertainment, just not necessarily the piece of entertainment I wanted when I first saw it as a kid. It's an All That sketch that somehow convinced a studio to give it a feature-length runtime, and honestly? Fair enough. Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell had the kind of knockabout chemistry that could carry almost anything, and someone clearly believed in that enough to let them loose on a full story. Whether that was the right call depends a lot on how old you were when you saw it, and how much Ed the fry cook you can reasonably handle in one sitting.
As a kid, I didn't really take to it. The show was quick, punchy, joke-joke-joke. Good Burger had a plot. Actual villains. A whole corporate-greed storyline about a massive fast-food chain trying to swallow up a little independent burger joint. And Ed, who in short doses is a lovable weirdo, gets a lot of screen time here. A lot. He's funny, but stretched across ninety-odd minutes he can wear you down if you're not in the right headspace for it. Young me was not in the right headspace for it. I wanted the rapid-fire sketch energy and instead got something slower, stranger, and more meandering than I expected.
Coming back to it as an adult, though, I'll admit it's actually okay. Not a classic, not something I'd put on anyone's must-watch list, but funnier than I remembered and warmer than I gave it credit for. The humour is proudly, joyfully dumb: food puns, gross-out gags, the kind of absurdist logic that doesn't ask you to think too hard. And underneath all the silliness there's a genuine sweetness to the friendship between Dexter and Ed. The underdog-versus-corporation angle gives the film a scrappy little heart. You're rooting for Good Burger, the place and the film, even when it's testing your patience.
Because it does test your patience. The story is paper-thin, which isn't necessarily a problem for this kind of comedy, but the pacing is all over the place, and there are stretches where the jokes stop landing and you're just waiting for the next one to come along. When they do connect, they hit that very specific sweet spot of early kids' comedy, daft and unpretentious and a bit gross. It reminded me a little of watching something like Trolls (2016), in that you're clearly not the intended audience as an adult but there's enough energy and goodwill in it to keep you going.
What I appreciate about it now, in a way I couldn't as a ten-year-old, is that it's not trying to be anything other than what it is. It's a silly film made for twelve-year-olds, built around two performers who were genuinely great together, with a message about small businesses and community that's so cheerfully unsubtle it loops back around to being charming. Nobody making this thought they were making art. They were making a good time, and more often than not, they succeeded.
Three stars. Harmless, occasionally hilarious, and best enjoyed with the expectations of a child and the patience of an adult.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 1997 | Watched: 2025-09-22
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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