Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mighty Oak’ on Hulu, a Lifeless, Possibly Insane Family Dramedy About Music, Mental lllness, and Reincarnation

Now on Hulu, Mighty Oak is one of those COVID oddities, a movie easily envisioned as a third-tier Crackle original, except it became screen filler for the handful of theaters and drive-ins that were open during the pandemic. It stars Janel Parrish, who we all saw in To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You; it’s from the director of Soul Surfer, Bratz and several entries in the Baby Geniuses franchise; and it would be a perfect fit for the Disney Channel if it wasn’t for numerous, pointless utterances of the word “shit.” Now let’s see just what the hell we’ve gotten ourselves into here.

MIGHTY OAK: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Vaughn Jackson (Levi Dylan) is, like, a total musical genius. He’s the leader of Army of Love, a pop-rock band that makes Maroon 5’s first album sound like Slayer’s last album. A sold-out crowd in a suspiciously clean, well-lit San Diego rock club is waiting impatiently for him to take the stage and stand in front of the microphone, strumming and singing and holding his head like he’s trying not to let his wig fall off. But he’s in the dressing room, getting struck by the lightning bolts of inspiration. His sister and manager Gina “Jean Jacket” Jackson (Parrish) tries to tug him onstage, but he just HAS to sing his new, plaintive, painfully earnest song for her. He finally plays for his adoring crowd and Army of Love conquers them all, and soon will unleash its heartful blaaaannnnnnd music assault to an arena crowd as opening act for the Arcade Fire — a big deal, because this is roughly 2009. Next, stop, stardom! Except tragedy strikes, and Vaughn and his special new song are gone forever from this world.

A decade passes. Decapitated, the band is no more. Wily skins-basher Darby (Ben Milliken) is a record store clerk who tries in vain to sell his old band’s old CDs to put-upon customers. Spirited four-string marauder Alex (Nana Ghana) works in a diner, waiting on the descendants of Jack Nicholson from Five Easy Pieces. Smokin’ six-string chordslinger Pedro (Carlos PenaVega) gives lessons to future axe-wailers. As for Gina “Jean Jacket” Jackson, well, she drinks too much at the blackjack table these days, then goes home, ignores a pile of envelopes that say PAST DUE in big red letters on them and passes out next to a gigantic Great Dane named Larry. Does she have empty Chinese food takeout containers scattered about like any Depressed Movie Character worth their salt does? We don’t see any, but believe me, they’re spiritually present.

What with this and that convolution hither and yon, a 10-year-old named Oak Scoggins (Tommy Ragen) ends up with Vaughn’s old guitar. The kid deserves it — he wears a KEITH RICHARDS FOR PRESIDENT T-shirt and can play some hot licks, man. HOT. All he needs to do is learn to pull a pained guitarface and he’ll be turning heads in more than just Guitar Center. That doesn’t mean his life is all peaches and roses, though. There are bullies at school, and his single mom (Alexa PenaVega) is a military vet who lies in bed all day injecting herself with drugs, enough that Oak frequently checks to see if she’s still breathing. Gina “Jean Jacket” Jackson catches wind of this kid, who can play Army of Love songs so convincingly, she believes he’s the reincarnation of Vaughn. No, really. This is the crux of the plot here. Oak and Vaughn doodled the same cartoon monkeys in the margins of their lyric notebooks, how could they not be the same person? She gets the band back together, props Oak in front of them, schedules some gigs and doesn’t at all seem mentally healthy. Maybe the power of music can heal her? As well as Oak’s mom-related pain? We’ll see, people. We’ll see.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It’s kind of like School of Rock crossed with, I dunno, Dead Again? Chances Are? Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives? Yeah — Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives!

Performance Worth Watching: Hoo boy. Let’s just say that the writer of the eternally execrable Four Christmases did the cast of Mighty Oak no favors with this script.

Memorable Dialogue: While assessing the potential music career of his tone-deaf student, Pedro utters a line that I’m absolutely certain the makers of this film didn’t realize was a ripping, incisive criticism of white privilege: “With your white face and middling talent, you should be just fine.”

Two more gems:

“Gina, I know you’re a little bit crazy, but I didn’t think you were KANYE WEST crazy!” — Alex

“Apparently it was her dying wish that Oak be with where his family is.” — No context necessary, I just transcribed verbatim a flubbed line that nobody bothered to fix

Sex and Skin: Nothing beyond one drunken advance that’s rebuffed.

Our Take: The car accident sequence that kills Vaughn features repetitive slo-mo shots of drums and cymbals smashing tragically on the highway, and the scene is so melodramatically overwrought, you’ll wonder if the movie is parody. But hey, guess what. It’s not. It’s a sincere modern fable asking us to believe that a soul can exit a dead body and enter a living one, most likely a baby I think, possibly due to the eternal power of music or love or family or something. Don’t expect an explanation, or some type of spiritual revelation for the characters, or anything that remotely resembles anything but the manipulative, unconvincing assertions of a creatively bankrupt screenplay.

In other words, nary a second of Mighty Oak rings true. It’s a tonally incongruous mishmash of clumsy comedy, burnt-to-a-crisp melodrama and half-assed conceptual flim-flammery. Remove all its cliches, and you might be left with the one line about that guy’s white face. It’s one phony bullcrap scene after another, sloppily assembled. You’ll watch through your fingers, teeth clenched in a cringe. Mental illness is a common subtextual thread; too bad it’s ill-advised, conceptually puerile and probably unintentional. And why so many “shit”s in the script? It’s as if the film is begging not to be merely feelgood family fodder, but it’s as sophisticated as pairing a Slim Jim with Chateau Laffitte. Mighty Oak is a mighty joke.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Somebody get me a chainsaw.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Watch Mighty Oak on Amazon Prime

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